


Art Thief, Heart Thief

by odetteandodile



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Art Forgery, Art Thief Bucky Barnes, Artist Steve Rogers, Blow Jobs, FBI Agent Steve Rogers, M/M, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Tension, Small amount of canon typical violence, Undercover Missions, White Collar Crime, a little bit of fake relationship, did i mention tuxedos, just a fun sexy time investigating some bougie crime and feeling feelings about it, revolving around tuxedos, this fic flagrantly idealizes bow ties and isn't sorry about it, white collar au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-06-27 02:49:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 58,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odetteandodile/pseuds/odetteandodile
Summary: Agent Steve Rogers is facing a series of art thefts that has him stumped, and looking for a break in the case.Convicted art thief and general high end criminal Bucky Barnes wants to make parole and happens to know all of the right people who could make Steve's job easier.So they strike a deal, mutually beneficial and entirely business. But a few days undercover, an undeniable growing chemistry, and some ill-timed Feelings entering the mix, and all bets are off.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello dear reader! Thanks for being here. 
> 
> Just a couple of notes: I have never been to New York, nor am I actually involved in art forgery or general crime, so if something seems off about either of those just go with it. It's not as important as Bucky's perfect shiny hair or Steve wearing a tuxedo, I promise. 
> 
> Speaking of which, feel free to find me on tumblr at [odette-and-odile](http://odette-and-odile.tumblr.com/) if you're curious about any of the inspos for Bucky's clothing, they do not disappoint. 
> 
> Beta cred as always to [calendulae](https://calendulae.tumblr.com) my eternally encouraging enabler :)
> 
> Let me know what you think!

“I just don’t _get_ it,” Steve says in frustration for the fourth or fifth time that hour, running his hands through his hair. “Why is a guy this good focusing so much energy on junk?”

“I dunno man,” Sam says from across the desk, where he too has a laptop open in front of him. He turns it around to show Steve the screen. “But did you know that you can buy a haunted painting on eBay? Look at this creepy-ass motherfucker—would you pay twelve grand for that?”

The oil portrait Sam is showing him looks to Steve like any other portrait from around 1800, though he can agree that the suggestion of it being haunted does make the viewer’s eye pick out the shadows as a little more sinister than they would otherwise seem. Steve shakes his head. 

“Thanks Sam, that’s super helpful, really appreciate it.” 

“White people, man—I’m just saying y’all have some weird-ass hobbies. I personally would assume that you’d have to pay _less_ for a picture that might make your walls bleed or whatever, but that’s just me.” 

Steve sighs, turning away from Sam to spin in his desk chair, thinking. 

“Okay, okay, focus up Steve,” he murmurs to himself, tenting his fingers. “He’s good enough to hit galleries, but doesn’t take anything big ticket. Same for private collections. Knows where all the feeds are, but seems to be working alone.” He stops himself with his foot so that he’s facing his desk and Sam again. “Sam. This one’s driving me crazy.” 

Sam grins at him, looking up from whatever new eBay oddity has captured his attention. “Really, Rogers? You seem so unfazed and easygoing, couldn’t even tell there was something on your mind.” 

“Ass,” Steve says, tossing a pen at him. “You know what, I changed my mind about accepting your ‘help,’ is the FBI not interested in terrorists anymore or do they all take the summer off?”

“Ah, come on! I like dipping my toes back in over here once in a while—since I transferred it really makes all this bougie shit seem so quaint.” 

Sam has been at Counterterrorism for a little over six months now, and Steve would be lying if he said he didn’t miss him. It’s not like the rest of the agents in White Collar crimes aren’t competent or anything, but it’s a pretty competitive environment so it’s not a lot of team players. Steve misses having someone to bounce stuff off of. Even when that someone is being distinctly unhelpful. 

“Anyway, if he’s stealing junk why do you care so much?” Sam asks, shutting his laptop and tidying up the remains of their desk lunch of deli salads. “Things really that slow over here? Nobody’s got anything more…I dunno, glamorous going down?”

Steve huffs leaning his elbows on his desk. “Not exactly…Phillips would love it if I’d lay off this one and get moving on something better. But it’s just—” he breaks off in an irritated growl, “I _know_ there’s something more to this thing, you know? Because he’s stealing junk but he’s really good at it and that doesn’t make sense.”

Sam gives him a knowing, close-lipped smile. “You hate that you can’t get in his head—makes you feel like he’s getting one over on you, even if the take isn’t that big a deal.” 

“Exactly.” Steve confirms. “A guy tries to rob a bank or lift a Monet off a collector, I know why, you know? I just can’t figure out why someone who can fly under the radar like this is wasting his time. So I have to assume he’s not. In which case, what _is_ he doing—?” Steve cuts himself off, before he can chase his tail around the thought another dozen times. 

Sam shrugs, disinterested, as he stows his laptop back in his briefcase. “I dunno Steve. But if you really can’t let it go, for the sake of your career and not pissing off the old man you’d better figure it out.” 

“But how?” Steve all but whines. “I feel like I’ve looked at it from every angle here—I’ve even started a fucking creepy serial killer-style board at _home_ about it for chrissake.” 

“You know…” Sam looks at him, thoughtfully, tapping his finger on the case file in front of him. “Nevermind.” 

“What?” Steve demands. 

“I just remembered—nah it’s a dumb idea. You’ll crack it eventually bro, you’re a great agent.” 

“Sam.” Steve’s interest is as piqued by whatever idea Sam has had as he is by his sudden abandonment of it. “Just tell me.” 

Sam tilts his head at Steve. “You remember that art thief I put away a couple of years ago? The one who hit Alexander Pierce’s collections like three times in a row?”

“Uh—I guess?” Steve frowns, trying to remember any details. He’d been new to the division then, so he wasn’t working on anything as high profile as that at the time. 

“The guy’s up for parole this month. Three years into a six year sentence.” 

“Okay..?” Steve says, not sure where Sam is headed. 

“So he’s not going to get it, Pierce is going to show up and lean on the board.”

“Sure, makes sense.” 

“But that guy…he was the best I’d ever had to run down.” Sam pauses with a wry twist to his mouth, “honestly man I know for a fact I wouldn’t have ever picked him up if he hadn’t had some kind of thing about Pierce and come back for that third hit.” 

“Connect the dots here for me, Sam. Your guy isn’t my guy, being in lock-up is unfortunately a pretty solid alibi.” 

“So you need a new perspective—and I’m guessing he would like to make parole and get out of prison. Maybe you could cut a deal to get his help bringing down your mystery man?”

Steve’s eyebrows draw together in distaste. “Like a Frank Abagnale Jr. type of situation? Conditional consultant or whatever?” 

Sam breaks into a grin and points at Steve, “Exactly!”

“I don’t know Sam, that seems pretty desperate.” 

“Well aren’t you?”

“Enough to put my career on the line for some guy who you caught in the first place?” 

Sam sighs, rising from his chair to stretch. “Look, it’s just an idea. Probably a dumb idea.” He cracks his knuckles, picking up his briefcase before adding, “I don’t know if it makes it a better or worse sell for you—but the guy is smart, and I know for a fact that he knows about way more shit than I ever managed to even slightly connect to him. If he doesn’t know anything about your guy, he could find out who does. So if you think this is bigger than it seems, who am I to say whether the risk is worth it? Just your friendly neighborhood idea-bouncer here.” 

“Yeah yeah,” Steve says, “go find some bombs to diffuse or something, ya troublemaker.”

Sam winks at him on his way out. 

Steve sits with his head bowed over his scattered piles of manila case files, brooding, for a long time. 

*

“James Barnes!” the rough voice of a guard bites into Bucky’s half-dozing state, and he sits up in the lower bunk to squint at him. 

“That’s me,” he says. 

“Up and at ’em.” He clangs his baton on the bars just to be annoying. Some of the guards are okay. Some of them are like this guy, a dick just for the sake of it. Bucky shuffles over, sticking his hands through the food flap so the guy can cuff him. 

“Stand back from the door, feet apart.” Bucky doesn’t bother to nod. He knows the drill pretty well by now. 

The pair of guards leads him away from the cell block, toward the more administrative and general use parts of the prison complex. Bucky isn’t surprised to find himself being steered toward the hall of interview rooms. With his parole hearing up at the end of the week, he figures his lawyer must have some final stuff to go over. Not that it’s going to make a difference—with Pierce set against him it doesn’t matter how nice he plays for the hearing. He’ll be finishing out every minute of his sentence in his cell. 

He is a little surprised, however, when one of the guards flanking him turns to remove his cuffs before letting him in the room. They’ve always left them on him before when Jones visits. 

“Behave yourself, Barnes,” says the other, opening the door and shunting Bucky in. 

Instead of the familiar sight of Gabe and his briefcase of unintelligible paperwork, there’s a man standing with his back to Bucky, facing the one way mirror at the other side of the room. 

Bucky raises an eyebrow. Uncuffed, alone, and the guy chooses to have his back to him. It’s an interesting move—either very confident or very stupid—and Bucky’s going to reserve judgment on what he thinks of it. 

There’s a thunking sound of the lock on the door behind Bucky, and the man turns to face him. 

He’s clearly a Fed—Bucky has a secret suspicion that they all bulk purchase their suits together at the same Sears—but damn if he isn’t the hottest Fed Bucky’s had the pleasure of being criminally investigated by. He raises the other eyebrow. 

Hot G-man is holding what can only be Bucky’s file, and he gestures for Bucky to sit down as he slides into the metal chair on the other side of the interview table. 

“So, James Barnes,” the man begins, in a pleasantly deep voice. “You’re up for parole this week, that right?”

“Technically accurate but highly unlikely, yeah,” Bucky responds, glibly. 

Hot G-man peers at him, eyes a little narrowed (and _wow_ they are blue). “What makes you say that?”

Bucky snorts a little incredulous. “I’m pretty sure if that’s my file in your hand you know _exactly_ why I’d say that, and that it’s true. So why don’t we jump ahead to whatever you’re actually here for, huh cookie? I was in the middle of a nap.” 

The man frowns, a deep, disapproving crease appearing between his eyebrows. He looks at Bucky for another moment of silence, and Bucky wonders what the guy is trying to figure out. Finally he sighs, setting down the folder in his hand and tapping it with one knuckle.

“It’s Agent Rogers, FBI.” He says, sounding resigned—though what to Bucky doesn’t know. “And this isn’t your file.” 

Now _that_ piques his interest, and Bucky’s eyes dart to the manila folder before he can help it. But it isn’t labeled so he assumes he’ll have to wait for Rogers to tell him what it _is_ about. 

Because clearly the FBI wouldn’t be here with another case file if they didn’t need something from him. And that is a scenario that Bucky intends to get as much enjoyment out of as possible—he’s got a lot of time on his hands these days, and not much in the way of entertainment. 

Bucky smirks at Rogers, spreading his hands. “In that case, Agent, I’m all ears.” 

Rogers flicks a look at Bucky’s smug smile and says, lightly, “Nah they’re not so bad Barnes—maybe you’ll still grow into ’em.”

Bucky bites off a surprised bark of laughter. “Okay, point one to the Fed. What can I do for you?” He’s always liked a guy with a bit of cheek. 

Rogers gives him only the barest tilt of his mouth to indicate a smile might be in there somewhere, and Bucky makes a note to see what he can do about getting the guy to slip up and give him a real grin. 

“I’ve got a proposition for you.” He says, face serious. 

Bucky is genuinely intrigued, but he can’t pass up an opening like that. So he grins and says, “hell I’m game, but you should know they usually do the conjugals in the mobiles out back.” 

Rogers stares at him silently for a minute, face totally impassive. “You good now? Got it out of your system?”

Bucky shrugs, “Can’t leave a guy an opening like that, you make it too easy.”

“From what I’ve read about you, easy isn’t generally your preferred MO.” Rogers replies in a neutral tone. 

“Ah, so?” Bucky says, leaning forward slightly on his elbows, though not enough to alarm any of the guards keeping an eye on them. “Then it’s my professional expertise you’re here for?” he glances down again at the folder under Rogers’ hand. “What’s your trouble? Anyone I know?”

Rogers slides the folder closer to himself, and further from Bucky’s eyeline, increasing his interest. Rogers might be playing it stony-faced and cool—but he is very, _very_ attached to whatever it is he’s got there. And apparently, he needs Bucky’s help. 

Bucky leans back again in his chair, smiling. This is something he can work with. 

Rogers’ eyes flicker over Bucky’s face, and his change in body language, and immediately sighs, deflating slightly forward over the table. He seems to have followed Bucky’s train of thought perfectly, another point to him. And he also seems to have figured out that the tack he was going for isn’t going to be much use if Bucky’s already realized his value here. When he speaks again, it’s in a direct tone without any of the coyness he’s employed so far. 

“Look, Barnes, I’ve got a case. Right up your street—and stuck. Got a recommendation from a mutual friend of ours that you might be open to working out a deal. He told me about how it’s probably going to go down at your hearing—doesn’t look so good for you.” 

Bucky frowns slightly, trying to think what mutual friend he could possibly be referring to. Then he smiles. “Sammy boy?” Rogers nods, tightly. “Good old Sam, I had no idea he liked me so much. Wasn’t quite so friendly when he was reading me my rights.” 

Rogers snorts. “You listen to anything else I said, Barnes?”

Bucky jerks his chin in acknowledgement. “You think you could get the board to sign off even against Pierce? He’s tight with the warden and most of the judiciary this side of the Mississippi.” 

“I can.” Rogers says with a decisive nod. “But do you think you could make it worth my while?”

“Let me see,” Bucky says, gesturing at the file folder. When Rogers hesitates, Bucky adds with some exasperation, “Look I know you didn’t bring it in just for your prop comedy routine. If you want me to prove I can actually be useful hand it over and let me look.”

He slides the folder across to Bucky, who flips it open and scans the first few sheets. Before he’s gotten more than five pages deep, a smile has started across his face. He wants to keep looking, to confirm his suspicion as well as out of curiosity, but he’s never been able to resist a dramatic gesture. So before he goes another moment farther, he shuts the file, sending it back across the table to Rogers, whose face is incredulous. 

“No go?” he asks. “Nothing?”

Bucky grins, enjoying the moment. “He’s stealing low-level shit, Rogers. Worth a couple of hundred apiece at most.” 

“I _know_.” Rogers says, annoyed. 

“So why do you care about him so much? Your time’s barely worth the insurance payout for that crap.” 

Rogers is eyeing him now, suspiciously. “I know. So why bother stealing it?”

He shrugs, theatrically, “Who knows why anybody does anything?”

Rogers glares at him, then sighs. “You do.”

“I do.” 

A complicated look passes over the agent’s face—a journey of triumph, doubt, worry, and eagerness. Bucky would bet every one of the stashed cigarettes under his pillow that the look means Bucky has him just where he wants him. 

Rogers clenches and unclenches his impressively cut jaw a few times. 

“Here’s what I can offer—conditional parole, which means the same rules as if you got let out normally plus a few extras since I’m sticking my neck out. No parole officer, that’ll be me. You bring significant value to the investigation I can maybe even get you paid a consultant fee—just a warning, it pays shit. But if you toe the line, help me get this guy, I should have the right strings to pull to get your parole approved properly which means you’re your own man again. That sound fair?”

“Agent Rogers,” Bucky says, placing his palms on top of the metal table so he can stand, “you’ve got yourself a deal.”


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop me a comment and let me know how it's working for you so far!!

_James Buchanan Barnes_

_• Grand theft—twenty eight counts_  
• _Breaking and entering—three counts_  
• _Possession of false identity documents with intent to defraud—six counts_

Steve shuts the folder before he reads any more of the rap sheet. He’s already been over it—thoroughly—so that he’d know what he was getting into. But this is the morning where the rubber hits the road, and he really doesn’t want to think about it. 

“This is a bad idea, Sam,” Steve groans, standing nervously from behind his desk to pace the admittedly cramped perimeter of his office. “This is a really, really bad idea. How’d I let you talk me into this idea?” 

“Hey man,” Sam says, looking at Steve over his shoulder, apparently unperturbed by his friend’s nervous energy. “I believe I said, ‘never mind forget I said anything, no bad ideas in brainstorming’ and then you ran with it. Definitely sure it’s your name on all the official paperwork.” 

“It’s just—god he didn’t even look at more than a couple of the pieces, _nothing_ interesting, before he shut the thing. He’d already figured it out just from that.” 

“And you, being a highly trained interrogator still managed not to find out what it was.” 

Steve groans again. “I know! He knew exactly how to make sure I was hooked. But I mean, it’s not like the offer wasn’t on the table already…it’s the same deal I was going to give him anyway.” 

“He just made sure you offered it while drooling all over yourself with desperation and handing him the keys to your car, I get it bro. I’ve met the guy, remember?”

Steve takes a deep breath, then exhales as slowly as he can. “Forewarned is forearmed right? Now I know how he operates, I can make sure he doesn’t get anything past me.” 

“Sure.” Sam says, neutrally. 

Steve turns to him, helpless. “You should’ve seen the look on his face when he looked at the file Sam—it was downright gleeful. I _know_ it’s bigger than it seems.”

“And now you’ve finally got a way to prove it. I agree with you—this is a good thing.”

Steve slumps back into his desk chair again, deflating. “I just hope it doesn’t bite me in the ass.” 

Sam gives him a sly, shit-eating grin and says, “I dunno Steve, like I said, I _have_ met the guy—you sure him biting your ass is the worst thing you can imagine?”

He ducks as Steve sends a whole cupful of pens flying toward him. 

“So where is DiCaprio now anyway?”

“Hmmph,” Steve says absently as he scoops writing utensils back into their mug, “wait does that make me Tom Hanks in this scenario?”

“Nah man, I’m Tom Hanks, I caught him remember? You can be…I dunno, somebody else. One of Tom Hanks’ lackeys.”

Steve doesn’t dignify that with a response, glancing at the clock on his office wall instead. 

“Should be here any minute. Assuming he hasn’t already fled the country taking my case-lead and career prospects with him.”

“Now why would I do that?” says a low voice from the doorway. Neither Steve nor Sam manage not to startle at his sudden appearance, though Sam hides it better by standing from his chair to gesture Barnes into the room. 

“Wilson,” James says to Sam as he enters, reaching out a hand to shake. “Hey man, is that the suit you were wearing when you arrested me?”

“This is my lucky suit Barnes, batting about eight hundred, including you.” 

“Oh good, I was worried it was on account of you having just the one. You look like a high school math teacher.”

“Yeah?” Sam says, acidly, “you look like a Russian mob boss who’d walk into the Met and ask ‘how much for the Monet.’”

Bucky breaks into a bright laugh, giving Sam’s hand a final shake. “You bet your gorgeous ass I do, Wilson.” 

Sam glowers. “Cool cool, well on this fun note I’ll leave you guys to it. Steve,” he says, catching his eye pointedly, “call me later okay?” 

“You got it, Sam.” Steve says, trying to sound casual and confident instead of extremely anxious. 

Sam slips out of Steve’s small office, vacating the one visitor chair in front of Steve’s desk—there isn’t room for another, really. But Steve’s grateful not to still be out in the bullpen anyway—at a time like this even his little broom-cupboard’s small measure of privacy is worth it. As it is he can see several curious faces trying to get a better look at Barnes from out on the floor as Sam shuts the door behind him.

“Sit down, Barnes,” Steve says, waving a hand at the chair. 

“Thanks,” he says, pleasantly. But he doesn’t take the seat right away, eyes instead wandering to Steve’s case board set up against one wall. “May I?” he asks. 

Steve nods, gruffly. But he watches closely as Barnes moves over to take in the various bits and pieces Steve has been pulling together over the last couple of months. 

Barnes leans in closely to read one of the newspaper articles tacked up in small print, so Steve can’t see his face to gauge the reaction. He figures Barnes will tell him what he thinks one way or another, anyway. He sits down in his own chair, picking up his now mostly cool cup of coffee. 

His eyes still don’t leave the other man though, and he begins taking in the changes in his appearance since their meeting in prison last week. His hair had been longer then, falling past his jaw and into his face—now it’s cut tidily, short on the sides and styled effortlessly mussed on top. His scruff is gone too, smooth face revealing sharp features and making him look much younger. Steve isn’t sure exactly what kind of deal he had with the court when he got sentenced regarding all of his things, but he’s wearing a suit today that was clearly tailor-made for him so they must not have taken everything. It’s a grey plaid that strikes Steve as a funny choice—almost conservative enough to look respectable, but offbeat enough to stand out from a crowd. 

He looks…good. 

In fact, Steve’s having a much harder time today ignoring the fact that James Barnes the Thief is six feet of smooth criminal wrapped in a very well-fitting suit and Steve hates him, but also under other circumstances would definitely want to put his mouth on his mouth.

Jesus. That line of thought is so not helpful. Steve misses the orange prison jumpsuit. That had been a good mitigating factor.

Especially when Barnes turns from the board with a smug as hell smile on his face that somehow says he knows exactly what Steve is thinking. 

Steve takes a slug of his coffee. The fact that it is now cold is disgusting and useful, it grounds him. Hah. Grounds him. 

“Alright there, Rogers?” Barnes asks, at last taking the other chair opposite Steve. 

Steve lets the tiny smile that had formed over his little pun drop again, clearing his throat. 

“You bet.” 

“Great.” Barnes grins, folding one leg up to prop on the other one, hands clasped on top of them. “Well, if you’re ready then—the first thing you should know is that you aren’t looking for a thief, you’re looking for a forger.” 

Steve makes a strangled noise of protest, scrambling to pull the stack of files toward him more from habit and comfort than anything else. 

“Look, Rogers—” he pauses, frowning. “Say, what’s your first name? Don’t you think we’d better get familiar if we’re going undercover and all that jazz? You can call me Bucky.” 

“I—Steve.” Steve relents, weakly, still trying to catch up. “Sorry wh—Bucky?”

Bucky shrugs, “Full name James Buchanan Barnes, had a kid sister who thought it was funny. Guess it stuck. But it’s what my contacts will know, so it’s probably what you oughtta use too.” 

Steve takes a steadying breath, palms flat on his stack of files. “Okay, _Bucky_. Can you start over again please?”

Bucky’s Cheshire grin widens, and Steve has the distinct impression that he’s been planning exactly this dramatic reveal for Steve’s benefit from the moment Steve walked out of the prison interview room. Well, hooray for him, he dropped a bombshell. Steve’s going to do his best not to stay off balance for too long. 

“It’s what he’s taking,” Bucky says mildly, “it’s important, but not for the pieces themselves. Look at the dates on everything he’s picked up. All 17th and 18th century oils right? None of them from major artists or particularly interesting to high end collectors, you with me?”

Steve nods. Therein has lain the root of his confusion about the whole thing. 

“So maybe he’s just a guy with a weird penchant for lesser works who also happens to be an excellent thief.” 

Steve can help his wry smile. “Or?”

Bucky smiles back, meeting Steve’s eyes with keen silver ones. 

“ _Or_ he’s looking to use some original materials that he can upgrade and pass off as something better. As old masters’ work. Touch some of these up, suddenly your three hundred dollar portrait is turning around at auction for thirty grand.” He pauses, thinking. “Or a lot more, I guess, depending on how good your guy is and whose stuff he can pull off aping. And since he’s using these as his starting point your authenticators will have a lot harder time picking him out as a fake. All the sale papers the buyers see might even be from a legit appraiser.” 

Steve leans back in his chair, staring at the ceiling past Bucky’s head, processing. Shit. It makes perfect sense. 

“Still with me Steve?” Bucky asks, pulling him back. 

“Yeah,” he says, distantly, mind still running over a million and one details, “yeah I—so do you think the guy lifting the stuff and the one doing the painting is the same? Or are we looking at a whole organization here?”

Bucky’s face loses the teasing smirk it held throughout Steve’s dramatic epiphany, as he genuinely considers the question. 

“Not sure…” he says. “Can I?” He motions toward one of Steve’s many legal pads, and takes it up with a pen when Steve nods, beginning to make notes. 

“Okay let’s say even if the guy doing the actual legwork to steal the stuff is the same one who’s doing the forging, there’s no way he or she is doing their own fencing. It’s just a full time job on its own, and it looks like they’ve got a pretty tight turn around schedule on all this stuff. Four to five weeks between heists, right, give or take?” 

He looks up to Steve for confirmation. 

Steve nods, eagerly, grabbing a pad of his own to scribble notes on as he gets back into the flow. 

“Right.” Steve agrees. “That would make me think that they have to have some kind of supply line coming in for other stuff too. I mean, say his method for the forgeries is just to touch up whatever he lifts to make it look like an old master’s style to increase the value—whatever paint and stuff he uses for his additions still has to hold up to authentication…”

“…so you’re looking at half a dozen people involved, plus some grey area on the customers depending on how much they do or don’t know about where this stuff is coming from. They might know it’s black market but not know they’re getting fakes, so they won’t be incentivized to say anything to you guys…”

“…and we haven’t had any luck so far on the break-ins. I’ve been beating that dead horse this whole time. But maybe if we could get at them from their supply line or…”

“Or get to their fence? Yeah that could work.” 

Steve grins, looking up from his notepad, and finds Bucky’s eyes fixed on him, expression inscrutable. His smile falls a little and he knows he’s now blushing. He’d forgotten there for a second that he wasn’t talking to Sam. Man, Steve must miss working with a partner worse than he’d realized. He needs to remember who he’s dealing with here. 

Steve clears his throat. “So uh—you familiar enough with this kind of job you think you know how they’re running it?”

Bucky cocks his head, looking at him intently. Steve doesn’t look away—never a good idea to let a con know they make you nervous—but he feels his blush spreading down his neck a little against his will. 

“Possibly,” Bucky says, guardedly. “Your thief is okay, but these aren’t heavily guarded works. He’s probably a dime a dozen thug. Since I’m assuming you haven’t been made aware of a bunch of recently forged old masters paintings flooding the scene, that means your artist may be the real talent, good enough to copy and not get caught.” 

Steve waves a dismissive hand at that, “honestly that’s not as tough as you’d think. Any idiot who takes a Studio painting class in classic oils learns how to imitate the greats.” 

Steve knows this from personal experience. There’s a reason he got assigned to White Collar Crimes once he’d proved himself at Quantico—not a lot of other agents coming through the division with an honest to god Fine Arts degree. It was a pretty left hand turn career move even for him. 

Bucky quirks an eyebrow at him. “That so?”

Steve hears the question behind it, but doesn’t feel like getting into his whole resume or list of abandoned childhood dreams at the moment. So he just nods again. 

“Yeah, you can take my word for it. So if we’re looking for the star of the operation it sounds like…”

“Sounds like we’re back to your fence.” 

“Fine art is a pretty specific market, gotta have good contacts and be able to pull off the high end approach.” 

Bucky taps his pen against his mouth, and Steve is instantly annoyed at him for drawing attention to it. 

“Yeah.” Bucky says with a sigh. “Yeah I got some ideas.” 

Steve can’t exactly read his tone but he sounds…tired, suddenly. It raises a small red flag amidst what has otherwise been a morning full of cocky bravado. 

“Look, Barnes—”

“—Bucky.”

“Fine—look, Bucky, I know your contract is contingent on you helping me. But I’d rather know now if you aren’t up to this.” Steve hesitates. “You’ve already cracked open a huge hole in this thing I wouldn’t have spotted for months. I’ll sign off on whatever it takes to make things easy for you, even if you call it quits now.”

Steve doesn’t quite know why he’s making the offer. He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t want to get out into the field, especially undercover, with an uncertain element—fresh from prison, untrained, and unprepared. But even as he thinks it he knows that isn’t the only reason. He chooses not to look too closely at it. 

Bucky smiles ruefully, and shakes his head. “No way Rogers. Where would you be without me? I’m with you ’til the end of the line on this thing. I plan on earning that government paycheck you promised—you better be planning on making an honest man out of me.” 

Steve watches Bucky’s face, which is once again arranged into a pleasant and indecipherable mask. He listens for any shouting warning signs in his gut, which almost never steers him wrong. But on the subject of Bucky it’s silent. Instead all he finds is the old, burning desire to hunt down the puzzle pieces, crack the case, catch the bad guy. 

He takes a deep breath. 

“Okay then, Buck. Where do you think we start?”


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a twofer day because I wanted to get into some of the good shit ;)

God, Bucky has been behind bars for too long. 

He used to work with good-looking people all the time. He was so used to being around extremely attractive people he hardly even noticed them. Almost definitely during his heyday he interacted with plenty of people who were even better looking than Steve. And okay he can’t think of any right now specifically, but in theory he’s pretty positive it’s true. He was a fucking professional. 

But sue him, he’s been in lock-up surrounded exclusively by very unappealing persons and hasn’t had time to acclimate. So he might be reacting a little bit like a freshmen boy who just found himself sitting next to the hot senior cheerleader. But he’s trying not to make too much of an ass out of himself about it. He’s back in the world now! Soon enough he’ll remember how not to be taken aback at the reminder that very handsome people just roam around out here ready to stun the unawares. 

A traitorous voice in the back of his head mocks him though, and says he would have reacted this way to Steve even at the height of his conquests because Steve is _that_ fine. And _that_ exactly Bucky’s type. 

Bucky’s always had a taste for fine art (obviously that’s how his chosen career path found him) and Steve’s a picture. He’s tall, maybe a little taller than Bucky, and broad shouldered to go along with it. He’s got a face made to be carved in marble—all strong lines and hard angles—and a swoop of dark gold hair parted slide-rule straight down the side. His clothes are pretty bland, even a little grandpa-ish, but on the form-fitting side in a way nobody’s opa has the pecs to pull off.

Bucky is feeling particularly grateful that his own hair behaved today—he’d got it cut short as soon as he landed back on the outside, and it’s looking particularly effortless yet buoyant on top this morning. Small mercies—hair height is key to his current aesthetic. 

But no matter. 

Steve is also Bucky’s ticket out of prison for the foreseeable, and that takes precedence over all else. 

It helps that he’s solidly in his element here. Bucky is confident that even if he hadn’t immediately had a good idea of what this case was about when he looked through Steve’s file, he could still have figured out a way to make himself useful. Steve would only have come to him in prison in the first place if he was desperate, and Bucky can work with desperate. 

Lucky for him, he’s not going to have to fake this one. At least not yet. 

Bucky never trucked with forgers, professionally speaking, but the world of black market art sales in New York City isn’t as large as one might think. The likelihood that some of his old contacts overlap is pretty decent. 

But he’s going to have to decide carefully, and in short order, how he wants to play this. He’s not quite sure yet which bridges he’s willing to burn completely. 

Steve isn’t wasting any time though. By the end of the afternoon, he’s already gotten approval for a safehouse apartment, tech back up, and official sanction of their undercover operation. 

“You brought a bag with you?” Steve asks Bucky, hand over the mouthpiece of his phone where he’s been outlining his requests to some higher up. 

Bucky tilts his chin up in an affirmative. 

“Great! I don’t think either of us should go back to our own places tonight—we’ll set up shop and send a runner if we need stuff later.” 

“Sounds smart.” Bucky says. Damn. That means he won’t be able to go back to his bolt-hole on his own in case he wanted to contact anyone. 

Actually, maybe that’s exactly what Steve is thinking, too. Another point to the Fed, he thinks. Well, Bucky has other means, if he decides that’s how he’s going to run it. 

It would help, of course, if Bucky _knew_ how he wanted to run this. Is he trying to leave his options open to go back to work? He hadn’t intended to go straight or quit the business. Getting arrested and convicted was in fact very much not a part of his plans. But now that he’s here? He’s not sure how much he wants to go back exactly. 

Bucky’s afraid that in the end it won’t come down to what he wants, but what he’s fit for. He doesn’t exactly have a lot of other relevant recent job experience, and now he’s got a criminal conviction on his record. If he’d ever wanted to get out of the biz it seems like his opportunity to do it might be behind him. Once Steve’s finished with him, that is. So even if the thought of picking it back up isn’t the most appealing, it seems foolish to cut the roads at this juncture. 

“Alright,” Steve says, putting the phone receiver down at last. “Well we’re a go. Minimal resources though to start—we got approved for a ‘fact finding expedition’ rather than a full-blown operation. Guess Phillips doesn’t want to risk a bunch of agency time and money ’til we show him we’re worth it.” 

“Until you show him I’m not leading you around by the nose on a wild goose chase you mean.” 

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, matter-of-factly.

“But you don’t think I am?” Bucky asks, his tone flippant though he’s genuinely curious about the answer. 

Steve levels an even look at him. “I think,” he says slowly, “that when we break this thing open, I’m not going to bother waiting for them to get their shit together. We’re going to wrap it up, and if they don’t get there in time to join in that’s their own fault.” 

Bucky smiles, eyebrows raised. Not a total boy scout then, he thinks. 

Steve shrugs. “Better to ask for forgiveness than permission sometimes.” He shoots a sharp look at Bucky. “Not for you though—don’t take that to heart for you. I’m not the forgiving type.” 

Bucky laughs, holding his hands up in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He’s going to need to keep an eye on Steve Rogers, he thinks. He can be certain Steve Rogers is going to be keeping a pretty close one on him.

“Good,” Steve says, with a half-smile. “Then let’s get started.” 

 

Two hours and a disgusting subway ride later (Bucky forgot how much he hates the subway when it’s crowded, it smells worse than the prison commissary and probably hosts about as many felons) the two arrive in front of a fairly non-descript apartment building. 

“Here we go,” Steve says, fishing keys out of his pocket. “These are usually pretty okay places—if you like a lot of grey and beige. Actually, the last place I stayed with Sam down in Boston was all nautical themed. Not sure if the FBI decorated it or just bought it off a sailor.”

Steve pushes into the apartment quietly, eyes flicking around the corners seemingly more out of trained habit than real concern. He moves away from Bucky to do a cursory check behind the two other doors leading off the main space, returning quickly. 

He switches on the overhead lights, then ushers Bucky into the small living room so that he can shut the door, engaging all three locks as soon as the other man steps fully into the space. 

“Home sweet home,” Steve says, looking over the room unimpressed. “Not the worst I’ve been in I guess.” 

“It’s very, ah…clean.” Bucky says, bemused. Steve laughs. 

“Fair enough.” 

Bucky watches as Steve prowls around the back of the bland grey sectional, taking stock of the place. The living room is indeed very clean—one might even say sterile—but comfortable enough. It looks more or less like a model living room set-up transplanted directly from an ikea. To the left is an equally personality-less kitchen, though he’s pleased when he wanders over to find the fridge stocked for them already when he checks inside. To the right is the door to the bedroom—only one, he notes with mild annoyance, set up hotel-style with double beds. Guess he can’t expect the FBI to spring for two bedrooms at New York City real-estate prices when one does the trick. 

“Looks like we’ll be Lucy and Ricky-ing it in here.” Steve says to Bucky from the doorway. “You got a preference?”

Bucky comes over to peer into the room over Steve’s shoulder. It’s even more minimal than the living room, so he can’t see much difference or advantage to either. It’s a lot like a dorm room, he thinks—identical beds, identical nightstands, identical dressers. He shrugs. 

“Nah, no preference.” 

“I’ll take the one by the door then, if that’s okay,” Steve says, stepping into the room. “Just in case.” 

He doesn’t turn around as he tosses his bag onto the bed, and Bucky notices a faint pink tinge creeping over his ears. Bucky suppresses a smile. Is Steve feeling some feelings about sharing a room with him? That’s kind of cute.

“So…?” Steve asks, turning, his arms folding over his chest in a way that probably feels protective. Bucky can’t help but notice how it immediately accentuates his frankly ridiculous arms. 

Bucky shrugs. “You want some lunch?” 

 

Steve continues to be quiet, hovering a little while Bucky throws things from the fridge into a pan—he’s going for a kind of egg scramble so he doesn’t have to wash more than one cooking dish. 

“Look Steve, I know it make look like culinary genius but this isn’t really complicated enough to require a two man team. Why don’t you sit down, huh?” 

Steve visibly winces, whirling around and moving toward the two person bistro table automatically. He continues to look profoundly uncomfortable at the edge of one of the small black chairs, eyes still not really leaving Bucky. He honestly looked less like an FBI agent standing behind his own desk at the literal FBI office building than he does now, perched on a rickety chair with his hands clasped in front of him like he’s in parade formation. 

He’s also shed the jacket of his black standard-issue-G-man suit, revealing a shoulder holster that almost caused Bucky to bite off a chunk of his own tongue. Bucky isn’t sure what he did to deserve that.

Shoulder holsters are an objectively hot and powerful accessory. They can create the illusion of strong shoulders even on people who aren’t blessed with them already. And Steve did not need any help in that department as it is. 

If he weren’t the unfortunate recipient of the waves of tension currently rolling off Steve in a small confined space, Bucky might have taken enjoyment in watching someone of Steve’s stature try so hard to make himself invisible. Steve’s back is hunched up in an attempt to appear as small an unobtrusive as he can, and Bucky just wants to tell him _oh honey, no, those shoulders are not hiding anywhere_. 

Steve’s button down doesn’t seem to be appreciating it either, stretching across his broad back. Under other circumstances Bucky might be very interested in putting that shirt out of its misery and sending it someplace nice and safe like underneath a couch or bed somewhere. Sadly at this moment they have too much on their to-do list today for either that pleasing prospect or whatever Steve’s anxious bullshit is about. The instant they stepped off the Bureau premises he’d seemed to wind up so tight Bucky’s surprised he hasn’t strained something. 

Bucky sighs, looking up at him as the butter starts to sizzle in the pan. 

“You can ask, if you want.” 

“Ask what?” Steve replies, with a valiant attempt at nonchalance. 

Bucky narrows his eyes at him and Steve looks down at the table, sheepish. 

“Whatever it is has got you wound so tight I can practically hear the gears grinding up there,” he gestures at Steve’s head with the spatula in his hand.

Bucky has a pretty good general idea of what he’s going to ask. 

It’s the criminal thing. It gets to some people. 

“Okay,” Steve says, squaring his shoulders. “Why’d you go back? To Pierce’s, I mean, the last time?”

Bucky blinks a few times, then looks down at the softening onions in the pan to buy himself a moment to decide how to answer. He forgot he was talking to someone who has read over his entire case file. Steve probably knows more about Bucky than Bucky knows about himself at this point—and he’s best friends with the agent who spent nearly a year trying to catch him as well. 

“Pierce is…not a good person.” He says at last. 

Steve gives an audible scoff. 

“I’m serious,” Bucky says, tone fierce, almost surprising himself. He finds that his hand is gripped white-knuckle tight on the spatula in his hand. 

“So relieving him of his art collection was what, vigilante karma?”

Bucky clenches his jaw, glaring back at Steve defiantly. Steve can think what he wants. 

“Not like you guys have ever gotten around to him.” 

“Sorry we don’t meet your rigorous standards for justice, Barnes. He actually ever done anything illegal or just something that pissed you off personally?”

Bucky throws his head back and laughs, humorlessly. “You got no idea pal. People I work with—worked with—Pierce makes them look like paragons of virtue.”

He presses his lips together, hoping Steve didn’t notice his accidental present tense there. Judging from the twist to the other man’s mouth, Bucky thinks he probably did.

“So you’re…” Steve begins, before biting off the end of what he was going to say, looking instead out the dingy little window beside him. 

“I’m what, Steve?” Bucky prompts, a little bluntly. For some reason Steve’s hesitance, his judgment maybe, annoys Bucky more than it usually would. He wishes he’d stop looking like Bucky’s going to pull a gun on him and demand his lunch money at any moment. He’s here to help. Jesus. “Just say what you actually want to say pal.” 

“Okay,” Steve says, raising his head and meeting Bucky’s eyes directly, surprising him. “Are you just waiting for me to turn my back so you can get back to it?”

“Huh.” Bucky says, totally nonplussed. He looks back at Steve steadily, expecting the other man to drop his gaze at any moment. Steve doesn’t—if anything he’s staring back harder now, defiant. 

“What kind of answer are you expecting to that question, Steve?” Bucky truly isn’t sure, and he suspects that it’s a lose-lose for him no matter what—Steve has already made up his mind. 

Steve shrugs, not breaking eye contact. “Dunno. But you said to ask what I really wanted to know.” 

“But I’m guessing even if I told you no—I’ve gone straight and love being on the side of Johnny Law—you wouldn’t take my word for it anyway.” 

Steve looks back another silent moment. Then he slumps in the chair, turning his head away again toward the window. 

“Guess not,” he says, tone unreadable. 

Bucky is surprised by the sting of that, even if he already knew it was true. 

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” he says, aiming for indifference and somewhat missing the mark. 

He strides over with the pan and shoves half the contents onto Steve’s plate. 

“Eat up,” he says. “We gotta make some plans.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop me a note and let me know what you think! Comments fuel my life force, fo real.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm living for your comments people, thank you!!

Lunch is a conversational failure after that. Nice going Steve. 

He kicks himself as he washes the dishes, half in apology to Bucky and half to escape the other man’s bristling silence at the table for a minute. It was dumb challenging him directly like that—but Steve couldn’t help it. He’s acting like a rookie letting Bucky get to him, caring what the thief thinks at all, and he needs to get it together. He’s supposed to be the one handling Bucky, not the other way around. Pissing off the convicted criminal on whom his case and future career prospects depend is pretty dumb, all things considered. 

Is Steve crazy though, or did it seem like Bucky kind of cared what Steve thinks about him too?

Nope. Definitely crazy. It makes sense, he’s cracking up under the pressure of this whole new situation. Maybe he’s not the kind of agent who’s made to run informants like this. Or consultants, or whatever. 

Or an even worse thought—Bucky _did_ seem to care about what Steve thinks, but that’s what he wanted Steve to see because Bucky is a con man and manipulates people for a living. Steve can easily see what the benefit would be to Bucky of getting Steve wrapped around his finger, and Steve isn’t even the criminal genius. Bucky could have some sort of long game he’s playing here, or maybe he just likes to keep his options and resources open. Either way, the thought of falling right into the trap and being affected in precisely the way Bucky wants him to be doesn’t bear considering. 

If Steve is a mark, so be it. That seems to go with the territory. But God, Rogers, at least try not to be an embarrassingly easy one.

He needs to get back in control here. He needs Bucky to trust and like him, at least enough not to bolt at his first opportunity, which he’s certain to have eventually. Steve’s done his best to give Bucky very little maneuvering room, but undoubtedly he can find a way to work around it if he really wants to. Steve needs to do what he can to make sure he doesn’t want to, at least not right away. 

So he returns to the table with a friendly smile on his face, taking his seat. 

“Okay, time for you to sing for your supper. Where do you think we should start?”

Bucky leans back in his chair, surveying Steve coolly. His expression is ironic, like he knows exactly what Steve is trying to do. He probably does, Steve thinks. Charming people into doing shit for him is more his line than Steve’s. But he doesn’t comment. 

“Depends on a few things.” He says. 

“Okay, shoot.” Steve replies, eager to get back into shop talk—they’d been on a good roll with each other back at the office. Maybe that’s the key to keeping Bucky happy, reminding him he’s useful and important to the case. 

“Earlier you indicated a familiarity with oil painting as well as a disdain for copying classics that felt too pointed not to be personal. Did I read that right?”

Steve tries not to balk at the question, which he thought he’d effectively gotten around earlier. He should have known Bucky had just filed it away to spring on him later. He’s starting to get the guy’s strategy down a little bit as the time wears on. 

“Um…yeah. I guess.” 

“Elaborate.” Bucky says the word with a wave of one hand. Steve would find it annoyingly high-handed if he weren’t busy feeling pinned down and trying to figure out exactly how little he can get away with revealing. Bucky narrows his eyes at him, apparently seeing through his thoughts, and adds in an exasperated tone, “I promise I’m going somewhere relevant with this, Steve. So spill.” 

Steve sags, knowing he can’t refuse when he puts it like that. “Okay yeah, my degree was in Fine Art. I took enough oil classes to know even the folks with no ounce of creativity could do a pretty solid Vermeer look alike with enough practice. I don’t really consider it a skill.” 

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “You any good then?”

Steve gives a one-shouldered shrug, feeling keenly uncomfortable. “Could’ve been, maybe.”

“And joining the Bureau factors into that where?”

Steve stares back at Bucky, who waits patiently without breaking the look. He knows it’s not a good idea to give a guy like this any more information about himself than absolutely necessary. But somehow he can’t bring himself to downplay it. 

“My mom wanted me to pursue painting. Always encouraged me as a kid, all the way through college.” Steve pauses, and Bucky is silent, waiting, so he continues. “Then beginning of my senior year she got sick, by graduation she was dead and I was piled under medical bills. And I just couldn’t bring myself to love it like I did before. So I applied to Quantico, and that’s the end of the story.” 

Bucky purses his lips. “That’s really shitty. I’m sorry,” he says after a moment, simply. 

“I—thanks. Me too.” 

“But you were good?” he asks. “As good as the idiots in your oils studio class?”

“Uh…I guess.” 

Bucky laughs, surprising Steve a little. “I’m going to take your tone to mean ‘yes douchebag I was clearly much better than all of them’ and work from there, sound about right?”

Steve can feel his face flaming. How did they get on this again? He distinctly remembers it being the one thing he wanted to avoid discussing. 

“Good,” Bucky says, smirking. “Because I think we should use that. If we can go to my fence as possible competition for this organization, rather than just poking around asking questions, we’re going to open doors a lot quicker. Think you could handle it?”

“Ah,” Steve says, nonplussed. He hadn’t thought of that. “I mean…what would I need to do?”

Bucky looks thoughtful. “Well, I’m hoping just knowing the shop talk should be enough to get us in the door. Drop a little vocab that sounds like you know what you’re doing, let my rep speak for the rest.” 

“You think that’d be enough?”

Bucky gives Steve a shark-like smile, full of teeth. “I have a _very_ good reputation, Steven.” 

Steve coughs. That’s…something. Purposefully vague and ominous and even braggy. Not exactly a remorseful rehabilitated member of society thing to say. Steve’s not touching that. 

The sharp edge of Bucky’s smile has eased off, and he’s looking at Steve meditatively when Steve looks up again. He wonders if Bucky was watching his expression as he reacted. If eliciting a reaction is exactly why he said it. 

That possibility irks Steve enough to respond, “That right? And that survived getting arrested, convicted, and jailed as well?”

“Hmph,” Bucky says. It’s Steve’s turn to smirk. “Don’t worry about that part Rogers. You’d better focus your energies on looking less like every single cop in an episode of Law and Order.” 

Steve opens his mouth to protest, but Bucky cuts in before he can. 

“Alright look, I’m going to make the cover story real easy so there’s not much to remember.” he says it in an instructional tone, like he’s suddenly standing in front of a third grade class. Like Steve’s never done undercover work before. “We’re old friends, you grew up with me in Brooklyn. Got back in touch before I went away and found me after I got out, looking to make a little more money than painting normally pays. You got student loans?”

“Oh um—yeah.” Boy, does he ever.

“Good, that’s good.” Bucky says, then laughs, his eyes crinkling suddenly. “Well, probably not for you—but for our story. Think you can keep track of that?”

“Yes,” Steve says, feeling a bit sullen. He is kind of trained in this sort of thing. 

“Good,” Bucky says. “I need you to remember something here Steve—once we start this, we’re going to be leaving your world and entering mine, okay? I know you don’t trust me, but I’m gonna need you to try. If it helps, know that if you get made, I’ll be in deep shit same as you, so not getting caught is in both our interests. Clear?”

Steve clenches his jaw, trying to read Bucky’s face, to decipher how much of that is truth. 

“So, think you can remember enough of that?” Bucky presses. “Don’t worry too much about the stuff that isn’t true, lean in on the stuff that is. If there’s any reason we have to get into the parts about Brooklyn and growing up and whatever you let me do the talking okay?”

“I—oh—okay. Yeah.” Steve fumbles. 

He hadn’t realized when Bucky had said the bit about growing up in Brooklyn together that he wasn’t basing it on Steve’s actual childhood. Now he remembers that of course Bucky wouldn’t know that Steve in fact _did_ grow up there. Which means…

“So did you—did you actually grow up in Brooklyn, then?”

Bucky nods. “Few of these people already know that part, so it’s non-revisable. Like I said, a cover’s always better with enough of the truth for the lie to blend in.” 

Steve opens his mouth to tell Bucky that they really may have been childhood neighbors for all he knows, when Bucky waves a dismissive hand. 

“For you though, the best cover will be letting me do the talking and keeping your mouth shut. The less chance they have to figure out that you talk like an FBI training manual the better.” 

Steve clamps his lips shut. Alright then—that’s just fine with him. 

It will be a good reminder to keep something to himself—something that Bucky isn’t already ahead of him on, using it to his own advantage. 

It’s totally not petty revenge for Bucky being condescending, it’s professionally prudent, Steve tells himself.

Himself doesn’t really believe it. Himself thinks he might be in a little bit of trouble here. 

 

The sense of trouble only mounts when Bucky reappears a while later from the bedroom in a new outfit—he’s ditched the (extremely hot) mob boss suit in favor of black jeans, a black sweater, and a thigh length camel coat. He looks like a wealthy gallery owner with his effortless hair and the whole thing makes Steve need to clench his jaw so hard he’s afraid he’s going to break a tooth. 

Bucky turns to him with a cool look, and Steve is suddenly frozen, uncertain in the middle of the kitchen as Bucky’s eyes travel up and down Steve’s body. 

“Hmm,” he says, seemingly to himself. 

“What?” Steve asks, probably too fast. 

Bucky’s grey-blue gaze flicks back to Steve’s face, as if just remembering that he’s actually there. Is Steve imagining it, or is he blushing a little?

“Ah,” Bucky says, clearing his throat, “you brought something else to wear right? Something less…government employee?”

“Oh, right—yeah. I’ll just go—go change now.” He gestures awkwardly toward the bedroom door. 

Bucky bites his lip, surveying Steve again in thought, and the effect is…upsetting. Steve shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. 

“Do you mind,” Bucky begins, then hesitates. “Do you mind letting me pick something different? From what you’ve brought?”

Do I mind letting you dress me? Steve thinks. Not if you undress me first. 

_God, fucking cool it Rogers._

“Whatever you think is best,” is what he actually says. 

“Can I…?” Bucky trails off, pointing with a thumb back toward the bedroom. It takes Steve a moment to remember what he’s referring to, but when he does he flaps his hands in a _go ahead_ motion. 

He slumps as soon as Bucky has retreated again into the other room, wanting nothing more than to bang his head against the kitchen counter repeatedly. What the fuck Steve. 

Bucky’s back before he’s really able to get rolling with his self-lecture. 

“Okay, I think this is good.” Bucky says, Steve’s clothes draped over his arm. He tosses them toward Steve, who’s functioning just enough to reach up and catch them before they sail past him into the still soapy sink. “Hurry up though, we gotta get going. Oh, and Steve?” 

Steve nods, holding the clothes unseeingly. 

“Ditch the heat.” 

*

“Much better,” Bucky says when Steve exits the bedroom, arms folded self-consciously across his chest. 

Steve can admit he has a point—Bucky chose a pair of dark jeans and a plain black sweater. The effect is simple but flattering. This look still says competent and well-to-do, but is significantly less uptight and like he could actually be someone confident enough to try crimes. _Try crimes_ , Jesus. Do not use that expression in front of the criminals, Steve. He shrugs into his black peacoat and squares his shoulders, turning back toward Bucky.

Steve locks eyes with him as he takes up his gun and holster, moving deliberately toward the far corner of the living room. He wants Bucky to see what he’s doing when he stows it and his badge in the heavy, bolted-down safe that sits behind an armchair. 

Bucky doesn’t comment. 

From their apartment, Bucky leads the way to the subway, and from the subway toward the shipyards. It’s rough and run down and Steve can’t help but notice how out of place the two of them look. He’s not sure what he was expecting, but creeping around to the back of an apparently abandoned shipping warehouse wasn’t it. 

But Bucky moves without hesitation, and the door they approach is unlocked. 

“Here we go,” he says under his breath. Then he leads Steve across a dark hall and through another door before Steve has a chance to think too hard about it. 

On the other side of this door is an office, and if they hadn’t entered through a back alley into what was very obviously meant to seem like an empty building, the place would look totally on the level. It’s tidy and well organized, with nice leather club chairs scattered between the three desks positioned in separate corners of the space. There’s even a professional floral arrangement decorating what Steve might have thought of as the reception area, if the situation were different. 

He reminds himself to relax his shoulders, and not to clasp his hands in front of him when they stop in front of one of the desks. 

The guy behind that desk is a huge blonde man with a handlebar mustache, bowler hat, and blue eyes so light they’re almost colorless. He looks up sharply at their approach, but immediately breaks into a grin at the sight of Bucky. 

“Barnes you fucking son of a gun!” he calls, standing from his chair, “wasn’t sure when we’d see you this side of the bars again!”

“Dum Dum,” Bucky says, pleasantly, reaching out a hand to shake the other man’s. “Been a fucking long time.” 

“Dum Dum” (an unfortunate nickname if Steve’s ever heard one) laughs, a little harshly, “Longer feeling for you than us I bet.” 

“You have no idea, brother.”

“Tough break you had there, couldn’t believe it when we heard.”

Bucky snorts, and Steve knows from their earlier conversation that his tone of derision is real when he replies, “guess I can’t say I didn’t see it coming.”

“You always did like playing with a little bit of fire,” the other man says enigmatically. “Speaking of…” he directs his icy blue eyes toward Steve, suspicion all over his features. 

Steve tries to swallow surreptitiously, heart beating in his throat. But again, Bucky steps in, sparing him for another moment. 

“This is Steve.” He says, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder in a familiar, friendly gesture. “Steve, this is Dum Dum Dugan.” He allows Steve a moment to shake the man’s hand, but speaks again before it seems odd that Steve hasn’t spoken up himself yet. 

“He’s an old buddy of mine from the Brooklyn days Dum Dum, looked me up just before things went south with Pierce. Kept in touch while I was on the inside—been staying with him since I got out.” 

A grin spreads over Bucky’s face, and Steve is alarmed at how indistinguishable it is from the real thing. Or maybe Steve hasn’t truly seen anything real from Bucky, which is also alarming. 

“And you’ll never guess what Steve does.” He adds, looking pleased. 

An answering smile curls Dugan’s mouth, “Okay, I’ll bite. What does Steve do?”

Bucky hesitates artfully. “I was hoping to get into it with the lady of the house. She in?”

“Ahh,” Dugan says, eyes flicking to an inner door leading out of the offices, then back to Bucky. “Not at the moment Buck.”

“That so.” Bucky says, coolly. 

Dugan spreads his hands, apologetically. “You know how it is, brother.” 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, giving Dum Dum and intent stare. “Yeah I guess so. Back to front gate status then, huh?” 

“Sorry,” he says, sounding anything but, “sure it’s just temporary. So what’s up?”

Bucky smiles again, easy and friendly, taking whatever just happened in stride. 

“Right. Well my man Steve’s a painter—damn good too. But you know how that is—starving artists and all that.” 

Dum Dum looks at Steve, and then back at Bucky, raising an eyebrow. “So?”

Bucky’s smile doesn’t falter. “So he’s looking to ah—expand. Ply his skills in a more lucrative endeavor.” He gestures vaguely toward the back of the building. “And I figured you all might be interested in procuring a few pieces that could be worth more than your normal junk.” 

“Hey,” Dugan says, tone light but still warning, “this junk maintains all of us in a lifestyle to which we’ve grown very accustomed. Why go out on a limb now with an untested high-risk deal? You know how she is—she doesn’t like surprises. And you aren’t such a sure thing anymore my friend.” He tips his bowler hat back from his face further, as if to get a better angle to stare them down, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Bucky ignores the jab. “Look, Dugan, this is small potatoes—fake import export licenses and all this bullshit. But with her client base and Steve working his magic, plus me as go-between…we could be making real money here.” His tone turns earnest as he adds, “I’ve seen what he can do, man. You wouldn’t know the difference if his stuff was hung side by side with the real deal at the Met, he’s that good. All I need is access to the clients who might have a taste for something a bit richer, and I’ll do all the legwork, my neck on the line with them, you still get a twenty-percent cut.” 

Steve’s certain that Dum Dum can hear the frantic pounding of his heart, even from three feet away as the guy turns to stare him down. Bucky’s pitch—it sounds convincing. It sounds real. But Dugan apparently isn’t as easy a sell as Steve would be. He turns from Steve to lock gazes with Bucky. 

“I dunno Buck,” Dugan says, eyes dangerous even as he maintains his friendly tone. “An old friend from Brooklyn you never mentioned who also happens to be able to forge real shit good as you say?” He examines his fingernails. “Gonna need a little more convincing than that, ’less you wanna tell me what this guy’s actual deal is.” He looks at Steve, eyes narrowing. “Because he sure as hell don’t look like he matches up with the bullshit you’re spinnin’ me.” 

Bucky’s face gives nothing away. In fact, Steve’s certain that if he weren’t in the unique position of knowing that the other man is lying, he wouldn’t suspect that Bucky is worried about Dugan’s challenge in the slightest. Bucky’s body language shifts slightly—not tensing, if anything he looks even more relaxed as he prepares to charm his way out with whatever it is he’s cooked up behind those intent blue eyes. 

Steve doesn’t let him get to it. If convincing this guy is what stands between him and his quarry, that’s what he’s going to do. 

“Look asshole,” Steve says, turning to face Dugan squarely, and trying not to watch for Bucky’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. He’s surprised at how easy it is to slip into his old neighborhood accent—like putting on a favorite pair of jeans. He tries not to smile as he drawls, all Brooklyn vowels and dentated T’s.

“You wanna waste your time kicking me around here or you wanna try and make some fuckin’ money? If we had a buncha time I’d tell you all about my single mom latch key kid bullshit and just how much I hated Franklin High. But we’re in a fuckin’ hurry so you better decide if you can go without.”

Bucky is very still at his side, but his expression doesn’t change. Impressive, Steve thinks. Steve’s smirking now, but he figures that isn’t giving anything away that it shouldn’t. 

Dugan raises an eyebrow at him, leveling him with those icy eyes for a moment. Then he barks out a laugh. 

“Alright, Rogers. Still gotta prove to me that the kid from Brooklyn can actually paint.” 

Steve gives him a wolfish grin. 

Bucky, with the same casual confidence he’s been wearing the whole time, smiles at Dum Dum like he knew exactly how this whole thing was going to go. They shake hands, Dugan passing Bucky his card and giving him another hug. 

“I knew he’d win you over, Dum Dum,” Bucky says lightly, giving Steve another one of those we’ve-been-friends-forever shoulder slaps like he’s unsurprised but delighted at how the meeting has gone. “She’s gonna love it, too.” 

Dugan stands at the rusted out door to the warehouse, showing them out, and laughs. “Don’t get my name tattooed on your ass just yet, Barnes. I’m not that cheap a date.” He peers at them, then tips his bowler hat in farewell. “But I’ll be waiting for your call.” 

He closes the door with a clang, leaving Bucky and Steve in what looks like a fully deserted industrial park, even now that Steve knows better. 

*

They make it a full four blocks away from the shipping yards before Bucky whirls on him, punching him hard in the shoulder. 

“What the fuck was that!” he demands, eyes blazing. 

Steve can’t help his grin. It’s the first glimpse he’s seen of anything but a perfectly composed expression on Bucky’s face and Steve’s not above savoring the fact that he’s thrown him off balance a little. Steve has a feeling that doesn’t happen to Bucky very often. 

“ _Shit_.” Bucky says, running a hand through his hair. Then he pulls himself together, and the transformation is instantaneous and total. He raises an eyebrow at Steve. “You really went to Franklin?” 

“Yep. Really hated it too.” 

Bucky laughs, a little sharply, the only betrayal that he’s still not entirely settled. “You didn’t say.” 

Steve shrugs. “You didn’t ask.” 

Bucky allows himself a little huff. “You’re a little _shit_.” 

“That’s what Sam tells me.” 

Bucky rewards him with another startled laugh, and it suddenly occurs to Steve that that is exactly the response he’s trying to elicit. Because he likes the sound, and he could get used to causing it. 

Nope. No. That’s not—that’s _not_ a thought he’s going to indulge. Stop right there and get it together, Rogers. 

They’re both facing forward again, continuing up the street, albeit at a more casual pace than the one Bucky had set coming out of Dugan’s. There’s a slight crease between his eyebrows, and he looks thoughtful even as his eyes are continually scanning the street and faces around them. 

“I was hoping Dum Dum would be a little less suspicious.” He admits finally, tone light. But Steve—probably in absolute foolishness—is starting to think he can tell the difference between Bucky’s fake nonchalance and the real thing. “I wasn’t planning on having to prove myself at the front door.”

“I think he bought it though, in the end? Right?”

Bucky gives a noncommittal little sound in his throat, eyeing Steve sideways. 

“What?” Steve asks, uncomfortable at the scrutiny.

“I think—I think we’re actually going to have to give him something. Some work I mean. Before he’ll let us upstairs to talk to the boss. I was hoping we could see her before handing over the product first.” 

Steve balks, stopping dead in the middle of the sidewalk, nearly getting clipped by a mom with a double stroller walking behind him. She flips him off as she steers around him, but he barely notices. 

“Come on, keep walking,” Bucky commands, wrapping a hand around his elbow and propelling him forward again. 

It’s not helpful. Suddenly he can smell Bucky’s cologne—or is it just soap?—and it’s extremely distracting. Steve shakes his head. 

“No! I—the whole point of this is to _stop_ the forgeries, not become a forger! I’m not—I don’t want to actually—I’m not like…”

Bucky arches an eyebrow at him, releasing his elbow now that Steve is moving again. He puts his hands in his pockets. “Not like…me?” 

Steve knows he’s blushing. Blushing is probably too delicate a word actually, he knows he’s gone instantly flaming red. “No! That’s not what I meant. I just—”

Bucky gives him a one-sided smile, and for the life of him Steve can’t tell what the expression actually means. So much for thinking he’s starting to read him. But he takes pity on Steve anyway. 

“Look, it’s all for the investigation. Have your tech nerds keep track of whatever you make, and you can yank them out of circulation the minute this is done—if they even get that far. Probably Dum Dum’ll stick ’em in storage to cool off a little and they won’t even make it onto the market before this whole thing wraps, okay?”

Steve groans, rubbing a hand over his face. “I haven’t painted anything in…let’s call it a long time, okay?”

“Yeah, but you still got it though I bet.” Bucky says, confidently bumping Steve’s shoulder. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, resigned. “Yeah I’m pretty sure I do.” 

Bucky’s face breaks into a blinding grin, and before Steve can anticipate the motion, he slings an arm around Steve’s neck, punching him lightly in the arm with the other hand. 

“Atta boy, Stevie,” he says. Steve barely notes the nickname, all of his focus is now on responding to Bucky’s unselfconscious touch in a not weird way. Steve’s never been somebody who’s good at casual contact—not that he doesn’t like it, exactly, but he just always feels a little too stiff and reserved to initiate. It feels nice, friendly. 

But no, he reminds himself. It isn’t. Because they are not friends. 

“I’m going to need some stuff.” 

Bucky squeezes the arm around his shoulders, reassuringly. 

“We’ll get it.”


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When a boy walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face you get--FEEEEEEELINGS! (shrek anyone?)

If Bucky had gotten some aesthetic enjoyment out of Steve’s straight-laced lawman routine the day before, it’s nothing to the scene that graces their apartment the next morning. 

First of all, he wakes up to the smell of coffee already wafting in from the kitchen, which is a transcendental experience all on its own. 

Bucky isn’t at his best or most observant in the morning. But he still notes that Steve’s bed has been made with military precision, pajamas folded at the end of it. He wonders if that’s a normal daily routine of Steve’s or something he does because he’s on the job here. Either way he feels like it says a lot about the guy. Bucky’s not exactly sure what, unable to process any kind of complex thought before coffee, but something for sure. 

He has to stop in the doorway of the bedroom, blinking groggily for a few moments while he reorients himself to a space that looks entirely different from how he left it last night. How long has Steve been awake? He’s made a serious amount of progress considering the fact that the hour of the morning is still in single digits. 

Steve has pushed the grey ikea sectional and coffee table off to one corner of the room and rolled up the beige area rug that was underneath it, baring an expanse of hardwood floor space. He’s got a handful of easels set up. In the middle of it sits Steve on a stool, working on a canvas with a crease between his eyebrows. He’s the sun in the center of a colorful galaxy of paint. 

Despite the look of concentration, Steve seems more relaxed than Bucky has yet seen him. He’s dressed in a faded grey t-shirt and worn jeans, both hugging tightly to his muscular frame and splattered with various paints. A flat wooden palette is hooked over his left thumb and resting on his forearm, where he can periodically reach over to swipe up a brushful of paint, or mix the colors better to his liking, all in easy, practiced motions. 

He’s also donned a pair of what Bucky thinks must be the glasses from a sexy professor costume, thick black frames resting on the bridge of his nose that he reaches up absently to push back in place. 

It’s a _look_. Bucky needs some caffeine before he can deal with it properly. 

The transformation of Steve’s appearance is completed though when he looks up, spotting Bucky in the doorway and letting a bright grin dawn over his face. 

“Morning!” Steve says, happily. 

“Mmrph,” replies Bucky, shuffling toward the kitchen. 

“There’s coffee in the pot,” Steve says, “would’ve brought you some earlier but I don’t know how you take it.” 

“Uh,” Bucky says. Would have _brought him_ some? Like…delivered him coffee…in bed? What the hell. “Thanks. I um. Like sugar.” He finishes, not really sure why his mouth is still moving when his brain can’t seem to catch up to it. 

Steve looks up from the canvas he’s working on again to give Bucky another brilliant grin, as if Bucky were being charming and witty instead of a basically nonverbal train wreck. 

What a difference a fucking day makes, Bucky thinks. Gone, evidently, is the stiff, awkward goody-two-shoes he walked in here with. Bucky isn’t sure what to make of it right at the moment. He pours a large mug of coffee, dumping several scoops of sugar into it. That oughtta jumpstart the synapses. 

Bucky drinks his first cup standing in the kitchen, elbows on the counter, eyes on Steve. Steve doesn’t seem to notice much. He’s locked onto the canvas in front of him, humming to himself. Well he’s a fucking morning person, that’s for sure. 

But there’s also something else to it, Bucky muses once he’s poured his second cup of coffee, drinking it at a more measured pace than his inhaled first dose. Steve’s shoulders are loose, not hunched up in defense as they were the day before. He seems…happy. 

It’s possible that this new, relaxed Steve is a result of getting the first contact of their operation out of the way with decent results. Maybe he’d just needed to bleed off that beginning-of-operation anxiety. But Bucky doesn’t think that’s all there is to it. And Bucky’s read on people isn’t usually wrong, it’s kind of a necessity in his line.

He watches as Steve leans back from the canvas, eyeing his work critically, hand to his chin. When he pulls it away there’s a streak of blue paint down one side of his jaw, and Bucky ducks his head to hide a smile that rises unbidden to his face. Steve did say he hasn’t painted in a while. Possibly since his mom died? Bucky wonders how that must feel for him. 

Bucky eyes him again. This time he tries to look for the Brooklyn boy that Steve apparently was at one time. He’s pretty embarrassed at how taken aback he was at that development—that whole reading people thing doesn’t usually leave room for surprises, at least when he’s on top of his game. Maybe he’s just been out of it too long, he’s rusty. Because he knows better than anyone that one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to assume anything from how a person looks. But he’d really thought he had Steve’s number with the whole “born to the badge” thing. He’d seemed like the kind of guy who grew up spending summers in the Hamptons or upstate, got into an ivy league because his grandpa’s name was on a building somewhere, and been anointed into government service the second he stepped through the field office doors. 

He’d be lying though if he said that he was unhappy with the development. Hearing Steve abandon his formal, cop demeanor and drop into a Brooklyn drawl had done warm things to his stomach. Bucky’s sure that Steve wasn’t aware either of how his body language changed as he’d shifted gears, growing loose and confident to match the slide of his vowels.

But it also has him feeling a little unexpectedly exposed, in a way he wasn’t anticipating. It’s not like the fact that he grew up in Brooklyn was a secret—Steve’s read his whole damn life story in his file. He just hadn’t really imagined that Steve would have any actual investment in that other than memorizing the facts in case he got asked about it. The fact that to Steve, growing up in Brooklyn actually means something—it just means that Steve has a lot more information about Bucky than Bucky realized he was giving away is all. And not just hard facts type information…he knows the experiences, the sounds, the sights. He knows the shape of Bucky’s early life, and it makes Bucky feel a little twitchy. 

“You seem less…tense.” Bucky says to Steve, to break the circling of his thoughts. 

“Oh?” Steve says, absently, looking up with a crease between his brows. 

“Yeah.” Bucky says, not sure where he’s going with this, if it’s a question or just an observation. “Less wound up…kinda happy.” 

Steve laughs lightly, looking back at the canvas and shoving his glasses up the bridge of his nose again. “Well, I guess I am. It’s hard to be stressed while I’m painting—takes too much focus.” 

Bucky gives a soft chuckle. “Being stressed or painting?”

Steve turns a small smile to him, “Both I guess. Gotta pick one.” 

There’s a silence as Steve continues to paint, and Bucky watches. He does actually seem intensely focused on the piece in front of him, Bucky thinks. Yesterday his shoulders had been hunched up around his ears, and his eyes darting around the place like he was looking for a window to jump from just in case. Now his motions are graceful and unhurried. 

“So do you…do a lot of this since school?” Bucky asks after a few minutes of quiet. 

“What, mocking up fake portraits by the old Masters?” Steve asks, not looking up. 

Bucky snorts at the sudden appearance of Steve’s sassy side. “No smartass, painting. I mean your own stuff.” 

Steve unexpectedly gives a sigh at that, leaning back on the stool and rubbing his forehead. He looks over at Bucky, then at the canvas, but Bucky can tell he isn’t really seeing what’s in front of him. 

“No.” He says at last, a little heavily. “Not a lot.” 

“Oh.” Bucky taps his fingers on his now empty mug, trying to decide if he can or should press on that any further, when he is pretty sure his suspicion is right and that Steve hasn’t lifted a brush since his mom’s death. He half-shrugs to himself. Might as well. He’s curious, and the worst that can happen is that Steve doesn’t want to answer. “So why is that? If it makes you happy?”

Steve smiles, but sadly. “It’s a long story, Buck.” 

Bucky knows the end of a conversation when he hears one. 

“Okay.” He says. His eyes linger on Steve as Steve turns back to his supplies, fishing for whatever color he’s looking for in the scattered tubes on the table.

After they left Dugan’s, they’d begun the process of collecting materials for Steve to put together some samples of his supposed forging abilities. It’s impossible, they decided, to really get the details right on such short notice—and Steve flatly refused to paint over any 17th Century works anyway, regardless of how “lesser” they might be. So they’d compromised, Bucky deciding that he could probably sell whatever Steve put together as just a demonstration of talent rather than a final product, which should be able to excuse the fact that whatever he has time to throw together in the apartment wouldn’t truly stand up to authentication. 

But they’d still tried to do the best they could to use somewhat appropriate materials, Steve dragging Bucky back and forth across the city through specialty art shops to find traditional, old-school paints and fucking badger tail brushes or whatever. 

And he’d insisted that their shoestring FBI budget wouldn’t stretch for cab fare. 

The result was that by the time they slipped back into the tiny, bland safehouse Bucky had been footsore, cranky, and ready to fall into bed. 

It’s an odd thought, actually, as he realizes that he slept pretty well last night. A full night of sleep is a luxury he never really had in prison—couldn’t afford not to be ready to wake up in an instant, just in case. So maybe it’s thanks to the fact that his body is still fully reveling in having a real, soft bed to sleep in rather than a shitty bunk. But the fact that Steve had been six feet away and Bucky had still slept soundly feels something like trust, and that makes him uneasy, because it definitely wasn’t something he decided on purpose.

He wonders if Steve had stayed up late after Bucky fell asleep to begin this project—though he hopes not, because if he fell asleep through Steve moving the sofa he’s really in danger of having lost his touch. 

He lets Steve paint in silence for a few more minutes before his curiosity gets the better of him. Now that he’s caffeinated Bucky realizes he has no idea what Steve has been up to since they found their way back here.

Bucky pads around the counter into the living room, coming up short behind Steve to gape at the canvas in front of him. And the one next to it. And the two propped against the wall. And one drying on the coffee table. 

“What the fuck Steve.” Bucky stares blankly.

All five canvases are full, basically complete works to Bucky’s eye. And they’re really, really good. 

In front of Bucky, Steve’s neck is red, and his shoulders are hunched in embarrassment. Bucky slaps his arm. 

“Seriously Steve, what the fuck? Are you a crazy person? Or a genius savant, or…what the hell?”

Steve turns around on the stool to look up at Bucky sheepishly. 

“Not um…not exactly. It’s not what you—I didn’t do all this last night I mean.” 

“Explain.” Bucky is stunned and a little concerned by whatever feat of dark magic produced all of this overnight. 

“So after we got back, I started looking for source images and organizing my stuff and I just realized…that I might have oversold my abilities to you a little bit.” 

Bucky makes a helpless noise, gesturing to the spread of canvases around him. 

Steve ducks his head. “No, I mean I knew I could do the work—but it would’ve taken me forever. And I didn’t want us to be stuck here for the next three weeks or whatever while I tried to get something together.” 

“Oh. Right, definitely.” Bucky says, automatically, though he can’t help but lean back a little out of Steve’s space. Right. Steve doesn’t want to be stuck here with him any longer than necessary. Neither does Bucky, obviously. He has a life to restart out there.

Steve’s brow furrows at Bucky’s shift in expression, and for a moment Bucky thinks he might say something. But of course there’s nothing else really to say about that, so he continues on instead. 

“Anyway—I wasn’t kidding about how you learn to do this kind of thing in Studio. So I uh—figured why waste a bunch of work if I could give myself a head start?”

Bucky shakes his head, still not quite understanding. 

“I sent a runner to my storage unit this morning,” Steve clarifies. “This is all stuff I did in college—I’m just brushing it up a bit.” He blinks, then grins. “Hah, get it, brushing it up?”

Bucky raises both hands to cover his face as he groans. “God Steve—we’re still in single digit hours here, you gotta save shit like that for later in the day when I can handle it.” 

Steve laughs—no, Steve downright giggles—and turns back to the canvas in front of him. 

“Anyway, starting with most of the work done means I should be able to get the whole collection done for tomorrow or the next day at worst.” He turns another grin to Bucky. “We got graded on how well we imitated each artist—it’s almost like they were training me specifically for this moment.” 

“Wonder if our guy was in class with you?” Bucky muses, faintly. 

“Nah, Professor Erskine would never approve of the whole ‘defacing original work’ thing. If you can’t mock up a Chardin from scratch on talent alone what’s the point?”

“Snob.” 

Steve shrugs, but looks pretty pleased with himself. “Maybe.” 

“Is that who you’re working on now?” Bucky asks. “What’s with the creepy rabbit?”

Steve gives a little bark of laughter, “honestly I don’t know—the guy had a thing for dead rabbits and breakfast foods. Dead rabbits and peaches—yum.” 

"Fair enough," Bucky laughs, “Who doesn't love a food painting? And the flowers?” he asks, indicating a larger canvas on the easel beside him, filled with a riot of blooms on a black backdrop. 

“Ruysch—Rachel Ruysch.” Steve looks at Bucky over his shoulder, mouth quirking. “Just doing my part to make sure women painters are better represented in the black market art forgery scene.” 

Steve gives him the name of the painter of each of the remaining works—two landscapes and a portrait. 

“So what are you doing with them now?” 

“Just making sure the detail is up to scratch. Wasn’t really planning on passing them off as the real thing when I painted them. Then we’ll see what we can do about getting the craquelure right.”

“Ah yes, naturally.” Bucky says, suppressing a smile. 

Steve throws Bucky a shrewd look. “Don’t play dumb Barnes, I know you know what that is. This is more your line than mine these days.” 

Bucky huffs in surprise. But Steve isn’t wrong. He’d recognized the Ruysch too. Damn, he needs to remember how much Steve already knows about him or he’s going to keep getting these bluffs called. It’s not like he really has a big reason to make Steve think he’s more ignorant than he is—misdirection about himself is just second nature at this point he guesses. 

“Hey by the way, did you bring a hair dryer?” Steve asks, turning again to look at him. 

Bucky gives him an outraged look, hand going to his chest in a “who _me_?” gesture. Steve narrows his eyes. 

“ _Did_ you?”

Bucky grits his teeth together. Then he lets a breath out in an exasperated hiss. 

“Yes.” 

Steve’s frown clears back into a twinkling grin. “Aha! I figured. That hair doesn’t happen by accident.” He waves his paintbrush in a vague motion toward Bucky’s head. “Anyway I need to borrow it later.” And with that he hops off his stool, picking up his brushes and water and moving away into the kitchen to clean them. 

Leaving Bucky standing in the living room, bemusedly trying to figure out if he was just complimented or insulted. 

 

Bucky hopes that after he showers and gets dressed and feels more like a human, he will find Artist Steve less unsettling. He does not. 

He slinks back into the living space still feeling a bit wrong-footed and not exactly sure how Steve turned the tables on him from yesterday. And if he’d done it on purpose, or managed to throw him off entirely by just being himself. There’s every chance that Steve, who as far as Bucky can tell is a fairly competent and successful agent, is working him. But it seems like there’s also every chance that Steve, Brooklynite and secret lapsed artist, is just that and it’s only Bucky’s bad luck that he’s having such a reaction to it. Either way Bucky isn’t thrilled by the prospect. 

“Hope you didn’t forgo your hair routine for my sake,” Steve remarks as Bucky makes for the kitchen, hair still damp from his shower. 

Bucky flips him off. Steve cackles and pushes his glasses back up his nose. 

He hovers awkwardly in the kitchen for a few minutes, contemplating a third cup of coffee but not wanting to have to heat it up in the microwave. He isn’t sure what to do with himself at all actually, with Steve industrious and busy. He’s not sure that whatever tenuous trust he has cached with Steve and the Bureau would extend to his wandering around New York on his own at the moment. 

Bucky curses himself internally for being so damn hesitant. He’s a grown man, he can stop tiptoeing around just because a cute boy maybe said he had nice hair or maybe made fun of his nice hair. Bucky already knows he has nice hair, it doesn’t matter what Steve says about it either way. 

He grumbles, then makes his way for the refrigerator. It’s after eleven, he might as well make them some lunch. After all, he hasn’t eaten yet and Steve’s been up since god knows what time. 

Actually it seems like maybe Steve hasn’t eaten either, he thinks, checking the counter furtively for evidence of any kind of breakfast besides coffee. Last night they ate dinner at a quick, greasy diner between art supply stores, and Bucky cooked lunch yesterday. It’s entirely possible that Steve doesn’t _actually_ know how to make food to feed himself. Bucky smirks. 

The possibility that Steve is the type of guy who subsists on takeout and shit food at the FBI commissary gives Bucky the motivation to get a little more creative with the meal today. Bucky Barnes would never claim that he doesn’t like to show off when the occasion calls for it. Plus it’ll give him something to do. 

By twelve-thirty, he’s pulled off a pretty decent chicken parmesan, if he does say so himself. He’s too smug about it even to feel weird over the domesticity of setting two plates and sets of silverware at the table, dishing steaming portions for both of them before calling to Steve to tell him to take a break and eat. 

Steve looks over a little glassy-eyed. Then his face lights up in recognition, and he scrambles from his stool saying, “Oh my god—Buck that smells amazing!” 

Bucky’s insides do something soft and melty, and he can’t help a little bit of a fond note in his tone when he says, “Wash your hands, punk.”

He obeys, and then sinks gratefully into the chair across from Bucky to dig into his plate. 

“Would you even have remembered to eat if I weren’t here?” Bucky asks, cutting into his own chicken. 

Steve gives a lopsided grin, looking particularly young. “I dunno. Probably not.” 

He shoves his first bite of chicken into his mouth, closes his eyes, and honest-to-god _moans_. “Oh my god, Bucky. Marry me!”

Bucky is not a blusher, never has had a particularly hard time with giving away his thoughts on his face. But he knows his cheeks are flaming right now. 

Steve finishes the bite and beams at him—but the expression falters as it undoubtedly dawns on him what he just said and Bucky’s frozen, red-faced reaction. His eyes widen slightly, before he drops them quickly back to his plate. 

“It’s um…it’s really good. Thanks.” He says, in no way wiping out the effect of his original response. 

Bucky takes a deep, steadying breath. “Yeah—yeah you’re welcome. You can take care of dinner, huh?”

Steve’s mouth twists, wryly. “Hope you’re good with takeout—you definitely don’t want me to attempt cooking for you.” 

They eat in the relative safety of silence, Bucky regaining his self-control a bit even though Steve’s face continues to be a little blissed out while he chews. Eventually he feels normal enough to attempt conversation again. 

“So do you normally work with oils? When you get the choice I mean?”

Steve tilts his head, considering. “They’re good for some things. But no, I guess if I had to pick I sort of always found myself gravitating toward acrylics. I prefer the quicker dry time—I like layers.” 

The corners of Bucky’s mouth tug up. “We should grab some when we’re out next.” He waves a hand toward the living room. “Got a bunch of blank canvases going to waste now.” 

Steve raises his eyebrows. “You think after a day or two of nonstop painting for work I’m going to want to switch gears and do it for fun?”

Bucky peers back. “I don’t know. Worth a shot—I’d like to see what you can really do. When it’s real I mean.” 

To Bucky’s dismay, Steve blinks several times in rapid succession, his eyes suddenly a bit blurry. He shakes his head and looks away, out of the window, trying to cover over whatever flashflood of emotion just caught him by surprise. 

“It’s not…” he begins, voice rough, then clears his throat. “That’s not really who I am anymore.” 

“But…you miss it.” Bucky says, voice soft. 

“Maybe. But I decided to go a different direction a long time ago. I’m FBI, not an artist. That was part of a different road.”

Bucky hesitates. He’s not exactly sure what he’s waded into here. He has a suspicion that Steve doesn’t talk about this—ever. And that’s why it’s crept up on him, caught him off guard. But Steve’s vulnerability feels like a gift, one he hasn’t earned but senses the value of anyway. 

So he throws caution to the wind and takes a chance, reaching out a hand and wrapping it gently around Steve’s wrist. Steve’s eyes dart up to Bucky’s in surprise, but he doesn’t pull away from the contact, and Bucky holds his gaze. 

“People don’t have to be one thing, Steve. Some people get one monolithic calling to dedicate their lives to and never change their mind—most of us don’t. There’s no ‘too late’ to do something different. Not really. Or to be more than one thing and be an FBI agent who lets himself love doing something else too. Who you are isn’t the same thing as what you do.” 

Steve’s blue eyes are intense and searching. 

“That go for you too?” 

Damn, he walked himself right into that. Bucky snatches his hand away from Steve’s arm, but Steve’s hand snaps out to stop him from pulling away entirely, their hands’ positions now reversed. 

“Because it should,” Steve says, in a low voice. 

He gives Bucky’s arm one squeeze, and then gets up from the table and retreats to hide behind his canvases and paint, leaving Bucky unsure of what exactly just rearranged itself between them.


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like a man emotionally intelligent enough to understand his own shit but also messy enough to make some bad sexy decisions--how about you guys? 
> 
> Things are heating up, drop me a comment and let me know what you think!

Steve can feel the searing imprint of Bucky’s hand for so long afterward that he’s half-convinced he’ll find it marked on himself later, like a bruise or a burn. 

The afternoon passes in a strange, slow-motion dance of bodies as Steve moves between the paintings, and Bucky moves around Steve—reading a book from one of the bookshelves. 

There are multiple times where Steve is certain that he glances up just missing Bucky’s eyes on him. It’s only fair, since he looks away many times himself just before Bucky can turn his head to catch Steve watching him. 

He’s all topsy turvy. He’s acting like a newbie field agent who’s gotten to attached to a criminal informant and doesn’t know where the line is anymore. There’s a reason the Bureau doesn’t let just anybody cut a deal like this with a guy of Bucky’s professional caliber. Bucky is technically a consultant, where the Bureau is concerned, but still. Handling him requires a seasoned agent, someone level-headed and not prone to emotional mistakes. 

Somebody like Steve was last week. 

There is a detached, well-trained part of his mind that is chiding him, telling him exactly how he needs to pull it together and stop letting himself get yanked around by a guy who’s probably looking for any crack in his armor to exploit for his own ends. 

It’s the painting. He hasn’t had a brush in his hand in nearly ten years—but he didn’t expect for it to stir quite so much up for him. He feels like he can’t get his feet under him, like he’s standing in the surf and just as he gets up from being knocked down by one wave, another batters him to the sand. 

And he misses his mom. 

And Bucky is being nice to him. 

The senior, seasoned law enforcement part of his brain just isn’t a match for all that. Steve shoots another sideways glance at Bucky. 

He looks particularly harmless at the moment, on top of everything. He isn’t dressed in his ostentatious designer street clothes today. Instead when he’d changed from his pajamas it was into a soft grey sweater and a pair of worn jeans. Now he’s sitting on one end of the couch with his bare feet curled under him, his paperback propped between his knee and the arm of the sofa, chewing absently on his thumbnail. 

It forces Steve to something between a realization and a decision—he is not as in control of this situation as he planned to be. 

If Bucky is playing him, planning to skip out on his parole as soon as Steve isn’t babysitting him, it’s going to suck. But not because it’s going to tank Steve’s upward career mobility (it will); because it would really, really hurt Steve’s feelings. He’d fucking _care_. 

He doesn’t like it, but those are the facts and Steve usually does his best to be honest with himself at the very least. So he sighs, and decides it is what it is. There’s absolutely no good reason to trust Bucky—but he has nothing to lose at this point if he’s wrong anyway. 

So when Bucky starts to get restless as nighttime falls and they turn on the lights in the apartment, Steve already knows how he’s going to answer Bucky’s next question. 

Bucky’s made the circuit of the tiny space about four times before he huffs, leaning his forearms on the kitchen counter. 

“Hey Steve?” 

“Yeah, Buck?”

“I’m dying pal. I gotta get out of here. Is it cool if I go stretch my legs?”

Steve looks up at him, searching his face for ulterior motive. He can’t find it, and he knows there’s nothing to do about it one way or another. Bucky’s going to do what he’s going to do—Steve just has to hope he’s given him enough reasons for it to be the right thing. 

Steve smiles, only a little tightly. “Sure. No problem. Call me if you need anything.” Then he breaks the gaze and turns deliberately back to his work. 

He’s not sure if he’s imagining the note of surprise in Bucky’s voice when he says, “Oh. Great—yeah I will.”

He shuffles around, pulling on a pair of boots and his coat, and Steve waits for the sound of the door opening and shutting behind him, wondering if he’s planning on coming back. But the door doesn’t open. Steve looks up, and finds Bucky’s eyes on him, one hand on the doorknob and the other thumbnail back in his mouth. There’s a question mark over him, and Steve raises his eyebrows in a silent inquiry. 

“You um…you wanna come with?” Bucky asks, at last. Steve feels his eyebrows shoot even higher. “You just—seem like you could use a break…too.”

Steve can’t help but beam at him. 

“I’ll get my coat.” 

 

They end up at a hole in the wall Thai place a few blocks from the apartment, crammed knee to knee in a booth next to the red-filmed windows. 

Bucky is more reserved over the meal than he was over lunch. He doesn’t ask Steve again about his painting, or his mom, or much of anything significant. Instead they talk about what kinds of things Bucky likes to cook, and why FBI agents dress so badly, and how nice it is being in Manhattan in the fall after a hot, crowded summer of tourists clogging up the sidewalks. 

“Of course I guess being out on the street at all is nice, I’m not picky,” Bucky jokes, looking out the window. 

Steve watches his eyes follow a laughing group of people across the street and down into a subway station.

“You gonna go back? To Brooklyn I mean—after we’re finished.” Steve asks. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, voice distant. “Gotta go see my ma and all.” 

“Oh,” Steve replies. “I didn’t realize she was still…still there. I guess. Does she—know?”

Bucky brings his attention back from the grimy windows and gives Steve a dry look. “Does she know I was in prison for the last three years? Yeah, she figured it out Steve. My dad, too, although he doesn’t…” he lets the statement trail off without completing it.

Steve winces, and shovels a forkful of green curry into his mouth to cover his discomfiture. 

Bucky looks down at his own plate, brows drawn together in thought. 

“She’s a good mom though.” He says eventually to his pad thai, not looking up. “She’ll be glad to see me and happy I’m back even if…even if it wasn’t what she expected.” 

He looks up at Steve from beneath his eyelashes, which veil whatever expression Steve might have gleaned to add context to Bucky’s next words. 

“I went to college, you know. I majored in Russian literature. Guess it was a surprise to both of us how things turned out.” 

Steve realizes that he’s holding in a breath, and tries to let it out slowly. “And…and why did it?”

One corner of Bucky’s mouth quirks up, and he says, “It’s a long story.” 

It’s not lost on Steve that they’re the same words he used to shut down the conversation about his career choices earlier. It’s only fair to respect them, even if he’s dying to know. He knows where Bucky’s rap sheet starts, but not the real story. You can only learn so much from a file on someone. Bucky was practically his neighbor, a peer, evidently smart and not lacking educational opportunities—where exactly was the fork in the road that sent them in such divergent directions?

The small movement of Bucky’s hand across the table toward his breaks him out of his reverie, as Bucky lightly taps on the back of Steve’s hand before sliding away. Steve he meets Bucky’s eyes, mouth slightly parted at the unexpected gesture.

“Don’t worry so much, Steve.” Bucky says, softly. “Not about me anyway.” 

Steve not sure if Bucky’s reassuring him about his commitment to their contract, or his intentions toward his own personal safety and criminal involvement, or if he’s just telling Steve to mind his own business in a roundabout way. 

But he knows his hand tingles where Bucky touched him. 

They pay for dinner and walk back to the apartment without much more conversation. The air is growing quite chilly at night, so they’ve both got their hands tucked into their coat pockets, and it seems maybe that their shoulders brush more frequently than warranted by accident as they walk side by side. Steve couldn’t say whether it’s intentional, and if it is intentional, he couldn’t say which of them is causing it. 

He’s extremely aware of Bucky as they move through their separate nighttime routines. Steve brushes his teeth, and his reflection gives him an admonishing look. When Bucky disappears into the bathroom after him, Steve figures it’s probably best all around if he takes himself and whatever frenetic energy seems to be singing in his bones out of the equation. 

By the time Bucky comes back out and shuts off the light, Steve is in bed with the quilt pulled over his head. He didn’t even bother changing into pajamas, just kicked down to his boxers and undershirt for the sake of being able to feign sleep before Bucky returned. But he listens to every sound of Bucky shuffling into his own bed, his skin against his sheets, and how his breathing eventually settles into a soft rhythm. 

Steve can’t say the same for himself. Even with Bucky apparently drifted off to sleep, Steve’s nerves are humming. He feels dangerous, heady, like he might still say or do something wild even now that the moment where it could have happened has passed. 

Eventually he can’t lie unmoving in his bed anymore, and he doesn’t want to alert Bucky to his agitation with too much wakeful tossing. So he climbs out with as little noise as possible, easing the bedroom door shut behind him and making his way to the small kitchen to pour a large, cold glass of water. There’s nothing as bracing as some good, cold hydration he tells himself. (He doesn’t believe it). 

Still, the linoleum is cool under his feet, and the act of standing in the darkened kitchen drinking water is soothingly familiar. He sets the glass down on the counter and leans back against it, in the shadowy space beside the refrigerator, with a view of the whole apartment bathed in pale light. 

It’s a full moon tonight, and it streams in the windows, coloring everything a dream-like blue. It’s enough light to see by, but not enough to see sharply, casting everything into a sort of incorporeal haziness. Maybe he is asleep, he thinks. Asleep but cursed to dream about sleeplessness. 

Steve is only more convinced that he’s dreaming when a soft sigh and rustling of footsteps precedes Bucky into the kitchen. 

He pauses at the opening, but doesn’t speak. Steve remains silent too, holding his breath, afraid to break whatever spell has fallen over the hushed space. Bucky’s shirtless, wearing just a pair of grey sweatpants, and the cool blue light curves and dips over his collarbones, his shoulders, and the flat planes of his stomach. 

“Can’t sleep?” Bucky says, just above a whisper. 

Steve shakes his head, still caught up in the web of quiet. 

“Me either.” Bucky says. He closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath, as if steadying himself. 

Then he opens them again and crosses the space between them, closing the distance between himself and Steve. 

Bucky presses in and rests his hands on the counter on either side of Steve’s body, his head tipped toward Steve’s—but his mouth stops just shy of kissing him, waiting for Steve to come the rest of the way. His breathing is shallow though, even if his movements are confident. 

It’s such a bad idea. 

Steve does it anyway. 

Bucky’s lips are soft under his, and he sighs into the kiss, leaning in so that their bodies are pressed flush together. Steve’s hands rise unbidden to tangle in Bucky’s hair, threading through silky brown strands every bit as soft as Steve has been imagining. Bucky closes his arms around Steve’s waist, letting Steve tip his head back to deepen the kiss. 

Bucky’s mouth opens under his in invitation, and Steve chases after him greedily in a hot slide of tongues. Bucky makes a small noise against his mouth, his arms leaving Steve’s waist to cling around his neck instead, pressing them impossibly closer as their kisses grow more urgent. 

For a few breathless moments, it’s bliss. It’s panting breaths and exploring each other’s mouths and Bucky pushing Steve’s hips against the counter top and Steve pushing back at the same time he’s pulling Bucky toward him. It’s a bliss that Steve could plunge into and never want to come up for air. He could urge Bucky backwards, toward their bedroom and a set of rumpled sheets. Or to the couch, to pull Bucky down on top of him in a tangle of limbs. Or he could lift him onto the kitchen counter right here and see how far they can get without moving another foot. 

But Steve is pretty sure a more singularly dangerous idea has ever occurred to him. 

So he pulls back, hands falling from Bucky’s hair to his shoulders, gently moving him away. 

“I can’t, Bucky—I—I can’t.” He tries to marshal his tone to sound like he knows what he’s doing here, but his breathing is unmistakably ragged, and his voice rough. 

Bucky’s arms are already sliding away from Steve’s neck, and he’s rocking back on his heels with a rueful smile. He swallows, and Steve isn’t able to keep himself from following the bob of his Adam’s apple with his eyes. 

“Yeah—no. We definitely—” Bucky breaks off with a weak puff of laughter and a shrug. “Forget about it okay? Bad idea.”

Steve isn’t sure how to interpret his tone. His head is all fuzzy. Is Bucky—does he agree that it’s a bad idea for Steve? For both of them? Or does he not care—just scratching an itch and not particularly bummed that it’s a no go?

“It’s not like—I want—” Steve starts, uncertainly, while his brain tries frantically to catch up and is telling him to _stop talking_. 

Bucky is the one who stops him though, before he embarrasses himself, shaking his head. “Don’t. Don’t worry about it Steve, it’s…just one of those things. I figured…no worries. We’ll call it—full moon fever.” 

He gestures toward the window, still lit up with moonlight. He smiles, casually, like he really means it, like he doesn’t care one way or another. And even though Steve’s the one that stopped them, it hurts a little. Because Bucky was the one who started it. 

But when Steve says, unthinking, “We should…we should go to bed,” Bucky belies his unaffected easiness with a little sharp intake of breath, and Steve says quickly, “To sleep. We should go to sleep.” 

Bucky nods, tacking on another amiable smile that Steve can’t read. 

“Gonna get some water, first.” He says, gesturing for Steve to go ahead of him. “Don’t wait up on my account.” 

Steve tries to accept the dismissal with grace, knowing he deserves it. 

But he doesn’t fall asleep for a long time, waiting guiltily under his covers, listening for when Bucky has finally crept back into their shared room and settled into his own bed with a sigh.


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies up front that I don't actually speak Russian. I hope that whatever way google translate butchered it turned out unintentionally hilarious at least.
> 
> It's Natasha time y'all! So enigmatic and scary but hot, she's a delight. 
> 
> Your comments have been making me so happy! Please let me know how you like this development!

Neither of them says anything about it or even alludes to it the next morning. 

Which is for the best, Bucky thinks. 

God, he’s fucking embarrassed. 

He wishes he could blame dry-spell desperation for how much Steve has him wound up—but he can’t. It’s just Steve. Bucky had known last night as he lay in bed trying to decide whether or not to follow Steve from the room that it was a bad idea. Unfortunately, being a bad idea wasn’t enough reason to keep him from doing it anyway. 

And it had been so, so worth it for a minute there, with Steve’s hands in his hair and his tongue in his mouth. 

But no. No it _wasn’t_ worth it because of _course_ Steve had shut it down, and now here they are having an awkward morning-after without even the small consolation of having enjoyed a proper night-before to balance the scales. And they’re still trapped in this tiny apartment together for who knows how long. Fuck. 

They’ve been avoiding each other most of the morning while pretending not to be. Steve’s been shuffling around the kitchen, using Bucky’s hair dryer and the oven to do something with the now finished paintings—aging the surface or whatever. 

Bucky’s happy enough to avoid that particular room. He’s not trying to find out if he’s going to get turned on by the countertops now. There’s a real possibility. 

He shakes himself, turning the page of his book without actually looking at it. He’s skipped a lot of pages this morning, realizing he’s been staring at the same one for who knows how long and then frantically hoping Steve hasn’t noticed. If they’re going to be in a stand-off over who can pretend harder that last night never happened, Bucky’s sure as hell not going to break first. 

And he needs to get it together. It’s one thing to be a mess within the confines of these walls, this odd world apart he and Steve have been inhabiting together, but they’re headed back into the world today and Bucky needs to be on his A-game. 

There’s no doubt in his mind that Steve’s work will pass Dugan’s inspection. 

Which means that today they’re going to be face-to-face with Natasha. 

And facing down Natasha Romanova requires steady self-control under the best circumstances, much less when you’re planning to lie to her. 

Or so Bucky assumes, he’s actually never been in a position where he had to try. It’s not a thrilling prospect. 

He hopes that whatever sixth sense of perception Natasha possesses, she’ll be placated by the fact that Bucky is fresh from lock-up. Of course he’d be a little different from who he used to be, maybe seem a little cagier. Maybe reasonably expected to be a little harder for her to read than he used to be. Maybe. 

He takes his time getting dressed carefully today though, figuring he can use any advantage at his disposal. And he’s always felt better when he’s properly dressed. Bucky wouldn’t say clothes make the man, necessarily…but he would say that clothes make sure the man is perceived the way he wants to be.

He opts for all black—black suit, black shirt, black tie. Natasha will like it. He looks scary but hot, which is Natasha’s vibe in a nutshell. 

Steve’s reaction is gratifying. He actually does a literal double-take, face quickly going blank. Bucky smirks. He’s pettily pleased to find he isn’t the only one still feeling some lingering angst here. That despite apparently agreeing to act like it never happened, Steve isn’t totally over it. 

Though if he’s honest, he never really would have believed Steve to be the type to make out with a guy in a dark kitchen and not feel any after-effects the next day. Because he’s the one who couldn’t even just go with it and not immediately stop himself because it’s “an ethical grey area” or “not honorable as a servant of the law” or whatever the fuck. In fact, Steve seems like the type to assume full responsibility and kick himself over it mentally every day until he dies. Good.

“Should I…should I be wearing a suit to this?” Steve asks, trying to cover for his stare. 

Bucky gives him a blistering once over. “Depends.” He says, coolly. Bucky is very capable of iciness when he wants to be. “You got one that doesn’t look like a J. Edgar Hoover hand-me-down?”

Steve chuckles nervously, and Bucky refuses to gratify him with an answering smile. 

“Um. I don’t know.” Steve says, laughter dying immediately. “Probably not, honestly.” 

“Hmph.” Bucky turns on his heel back toward the bedroom. “I’ll pick something. Thanks for being honest Steven, it really is the best policy.”

Steve doesn’t bother with a comeback.

 

They’re on the street an hour later, both with a butcher paper wrapped bundle of canvases under their arm. 

Steve is dressed in a casual sort of counterpoint to Bucky, in jeans and one of Bucky’s blazers—a brown tweed. It’s got elbow patches. Bucky made him wear his glasses, too. He looks like a hot art professor—which is both totally appropriate to their cover and also irrationally infuriating to Bucky on a personal level. 

Steve tries to make conversation at a couple of points in their trek to the shipyards, but Bucky doesn’t do much to keep up his end. He’s fine with Steve assuming it’s because of him, though in reality it’s that he finds his stomach twisting further and further into knots the closer they get to Natasha’s. 

Dum Dum gives them a friendly salute from the back corner as soon as they let themselves into the warehouse. Today one of the other desks is occupied as well, and Monty throws him a lazy wave with one hand, barely looking up from his ledger. Falsworth isn’t easily impressed, and apparently neither getting arrested nor getting out again have been anything he finds worthy of a more enthusiastic greeting. 

“Good to see you boys!” Dugan booms, coming around the front of his desk. “I’ve been told to send you right up, so apparently some of your house credit is still good here, Barnes.” 

“Glad to hear it,” Bucky says lightly, although the change in reception puts him a bit on edge. What is different from two days ago that now he’s back on Nat’s good side?

Bucky makes for the metal door set to the left of Dum Dum’s desk, but the big man stops him with a quick hand on his shoulder. 

“Whoa now, it’s not that good. Come on, you know the drill.” 

Bucky sighs, widening his stance and holding up his arms to let Dugan conduct a quick pat down. 

“You know I hate guns, Dum Dum.” Bucky tells him as he runs his hands under Bucky’s jacket in a quick, practiced motion. 

“Yeah, but that don’t mean you don’t know how to use ’em.” 

Bucky scoffs, but mostly because it’s true. Natasha had made sure he at least knew what to do with one if the situation demanded it. He’s a good shot, too. Just doesn’t like it.

“You too,” Dugan says to Steve, who awkwardly hands Bucky his parcels to allow it. Bucky’s glad he reminded him to ditch his gun again today. 

“Okay, all good.” Dum Dum says with a jovial smile that seems unsuited to a man who just searched them for firearms, but so be it. “Go on up.”

They climb a narrow, rusty staircase behind the door to a second landing, Steve quiet behind him. That’s for the best, Bucky thinks. He hopes Steve keeps to the less-is-more approach they discussed once they’re in front of Natasha—anything could give away everything with her. Bucky keeps trying to remind himself that Steve is ostensibly trained for this, but it’s hard when his nerves are so zingy. 

They step through the door into what Bucky thinks of as Natasha’s office, and he hears Steve give a small gasp of wonder. And okay—yeah. Bucky had kind of forgotten how amazingly cool this place is. 

Natasha’s “office” is actually half of the entire second floor of the warehouse, a long, soaring space filled with bright light from massive windows. The floors are glossy planks of hardwood, and the wall opposite the windows is painted gallery white and hung all the way down with an eclectic and varied art collection. It ranges from tapestries to impressionists to an odd sculptural modern piece all made up of twisted straws. Bucky can’t help but glance back at Steve, who is openly gaping. Bucky suppresses a smile. Well, that’s alright. It’s probably what real Artist Steve’s reaction would be too. 

They bypass a series of artfully arranged art-deco lounge furniture, heading all the way to the end of the long space, where a red-headed woman sits behind a massive black desk. 

Natasha smiles at them as they approach, but doesn’t stand or move to come around and greet them. 

“James,” she says, nodding to him. 

Bucky hears Steve give a little noise of interest at her calling him by his first name. Shut up Steve, he thinks as loudly toward the other man as he can. 

Natasha has already turned her green, catlike gaze toward Steve, zeroing in on him with entirely too much intense interest for Bucky’s liking. 

“And you must be Steven.” She says, mouth curling. “Bucky’s _old friend_.” 

In Natasha’s mouth, which is normally devoid of emphasis, the clear italics on the words are akin to a blaring siren in Bucky’s ears. Shit, something is wrong.

Natasha has known him for a long time. He knew the “old friend” cover story was a bit of a risk with her, but he’d hoped that playing it off enough as somebody he’d known before college and only just reconnected with would do the trick. From the look on her face he suddenly very much doubts it has.

There’s nothing he can do to warn Steve without blowing the whole thing, so he just has to watch it unfold and hope that whatever game of cat-and-mouse Nat wants to play with them ends in a catch-and-release way and not a drifting-on-the-bottom-of-the-river way. She’s impossible to predict. 

Steve’s giving Bucky a sideways look of inquiry, but since Bucky hasn’t given him any indication of what to do, he improvises. 

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” He says, holding out a hand to shake hers. 

Bucky wishes he could drop his face into his hands and groan for an hour. Ma’am? Honestly Steve, god. 

Natasha’s lips quirk as she returns the handshake. Then she looks back at Bucky, knowingly. 

“ _Vash drug ochen' vezhliv_ ,” she says, and it take Bucky a moment to re-acclimate to Russian after long disuse. _Your boyfriend is very polite_.

His mouth drops open, and he’s formulating a response to that when she adds, “ _Ya mogu ponyat', pochemu vy khotite derzhat' yego v secrete_.” _I can see why you’d want to keep him a secret_.

“Ah…hah.” He says, with a weak laugh. Oh. If _that’s_ what she thinks she’s got over on him, he can definitely work with that. 

He’s about to find out if Steve is actually any good at rolling with the unexpected undercover punches. 

Bucky gives Nat a bashful smile, and steps sideways to interlace his fingers with Steve’s. He turns his face, brushing his lips in a light kiss across Steve’s cheek. 

Steve, although Bucky can tell he’s gone extremely still, does not immediately jerk away from him or startle at the contact, and he gives nothing away on his face. Bucky smiles at him, making sure to let his expression go a little soft. 

“The jig’s up, sweetheart. Told you nothing gets past her.” 

Steve’s hand relaxes a little in Bucky’s and he gives his fingers a squeeze, searching Bucky’s face. One corner of his mouth tugs up into a half-smile, looking as shyly besotted as Bucky could hope for them to pull off the unforeseen change in their story. Okay, Steve doesn’t suck at this.

“That right? Guess we aren’t that good at hiding it, huh?”

Bless him. Okay, Bucky can work with this. They’re back on track—no cement boots for either of them today. Just some hand holding and maybe a few more charged glances. Like that’ll be hard to fake. 

“So I hear you’ve got a little job to sell me?” Natasha breaks in, voice dry. 

Bucky pulls his eyes away from Steve’s, back to Nat, who has him fixed with her unblinking, green stare. Still not time to get too comfortable, he thinks. 

“That’s right. Dugan tell you the gist?” 

“That your boy is a forger and you want me to sell his stuff?”

It’s close enough for the moment, though Bucky’s mind is already whirring on how to get her around to discussing possible competition, or maybe handing over a client list. 

“Something like that,” he says, placing the brown paper-wrapped package in front of her on the desk.

“Aw for me? You shouldn’t have.” Natasha says. Then she’s slicing open the string it’s tied with using a small, sharp knife that Bucky is certain wasn’t in her hand five seconds ago. 

Natasha unwraps all of the canvases, and lays them out on her massive desk side-by-side, studying them with a critical eye for several long minutes. She moves from one to the next, then back again, examining for who knows what.

Bucky can tell Steve is getting nervous, though Bucky knows that her extended inspection is undoubtedly a good sign rather than a bad one. When she pulls out a delicate gold magnifying glass to continue, Steve lets out a small, strained breath and slips away from Bucky’s side, moving to investigate the pieces hanging nearest them on Natasha’s gallery wall rather than continue to watch her scrutinize his work. 

It’s for the best. Bucky doesn’t think Natasha’s excruciatingly slow interest in Steve’s efforts is exclusively an attempt to break him, necessarily, but she’d probably consider it a bonus if he cracked waiting for her to voice an opinion. He’s better out of the way and distracted a bit. 

Bucky himself gets a little distracted, watching Steve’s face travel through intent curiosity and amazement a dozen or so times as he moves down the wall from piece to piece. So much so that Bucky jumps just as much as Steve when Natasha breaks the silence. 

“What do you think of my collection, Steven?” 

Bucky’s head jerks back around, and he finds that Natasha is seated again in her black leather chair, and has been watching him watch Steve for an indeterminate amount of time. Hopefully not like, a humiliatingly long time. Ugh. 

Steve’s face is a little clouded, and Bucky rocks forward, nervously, as if he can keep Steve from giving away too much if he’s forgotten what they’re doing here. 

“I do,” Steve says, simply. “Is this stuff real?”

Natasha’s smile is razor sharp. “Most of it.” 

Bucky’s eyes go to the specific piece that Steve’s standing in front of, and wishes he could melt into the floorboards. Don’t, Steve. Don’t ask. Please don’t ask. 

“Is this one?” The stupid fucker asks. 

Natasha’s smile doesn’t budge, and she raises an indolent hand to inspect her flawless manicure. 

“Yes—that’s one of my favorites actually. James lifted that piece for me on our second job together—he’s such a romantic.” 

Bucky doesn’t try to keep himself from glaring daggers of death at Nat, though she pointedly ignores him, because okay that is a below low blow. Telling his fake boyfriend on him for stealing what is an admittedly highly valuable and kind of important piece _and_ implying it was a love gift? When okay, no. It was a friend gift. A stolen, definitely valuable and still unaccounted-for friend gift. 

From a heist which the FBI previously did _not_ have any idea he was connected to in any way. Fuck you Nat. 

She looks smug as hell about the whole thing too. Bucky refuses to look at Steve again to see what his reaction was to it, knowing that’s what she wants. 

But it doesn’t faze her, anyway, and she ploughs ahead. “Steven, your work is masterful.” She sweeps a slender hand expansively over the paintings. “But I’m afraid I’m not interested in what you boys are selling at the moment.” 

The wording strikes an anxious note in Bucky’s mind that he’s careful to keep off of his face. 

“What’s not to like?” He asks. 

“Oh I just think I have one too many things on my plate to get involved in the…art scene at the moment.” 

Once more, the slightest shift in Natasha’s tone speaks volumes. Bucky feels his heart beginning to race. She knows. This time he’s certain, she definitely knows. 

So he’s shocked when the next words out of her mouth are, “But I think I might be able to point you in the right direction.” 

“Oh?” Bucky manages to ask, sounding almost normal. 

“Mm. You’re not the only new forger in town at the moment—isn’t it funny how that happens?” Bucky doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what game she’s playing, but whatever it is she’s already several moves ahead. “Anyway this other organization is fairly well set-up, I think they have some money going into it. But I have a feeling it might be a good idea for you to get in touch.”

Bucky clears his throat. He wishes suddenly that Steve weren’t here, and that he could ask Natasha directly what she knows and what she wants. “And why is that?”

Natasha gives a graceful shrug. “Because whoever this group has doing their artwork—Steven here is better. I just think they’d benefit from your…input.” She caps it with a smile. 

“So how do we get in touch?” Steve asks. Bucky shoots him a warning glance, but he doesn’t think Steve saw it. Of course Nat probably did. 

“I couldn’t say exactly.” Nat says, airily, opening the middle drawer of her desk and rummaging around in it. 

“So how do we…?” Steve asks, eyebrows knitted together. 

Nat looks back up, having produced a business card and fountain pen. 

“I don’t have a name, and I haven’t asked—professional courtesy. But I happen to know that they prefer to work with original works as a starting point.” 

Steve flicks his eyes toward Bucky, and Bucky keeps his fixed purposefully on Natasha. Well, it is the right guy at least. 

“Some of it they acquire locally.” A euphemism for the private collection robberies, Bucky imagines. “But they have a high demand and that’s a bit of a low inventory market. So they’re bringing in outside materials. What day is it?” 

“Um…Thursday?” Steve supplies, helpfully. 

“Perfect. Tomorrow night at the Zola Auction house. They’ll have a buyer there, picking up a lot they’re laundering through Zola’s as legit.” 

“Okay…” Bucky prompts, not sure where she’s leading them. 

“Their buyer always bids under paddle number 8 so the auctioneer knows. It’s the same low level stuff so usually there’s hardly anyone else bidding, they’re there for the big ticket items. If I were you, I’d see what he’s bidding for and outbid him. Every time. And don’t bid on anything else. That should get their attention pretty quickly, and you can set up a meeting.”

“Huh.” Bucky says, blankly. 

“You think that’ll work? Won’t the buyer just be pissed?” Steve asks, frowning. 

Natasha gives him another tight smirk. “That’s what makes this job fun, Steven. James here will have to teach you about that side of things.” 

She stands up from the table, and reaches out to shake Bucky’s hand. He comes away with the card in his palm, and as she reaches over to shake Steve’s he glances down at it. Actually she’s handed him two. One just says _Zola’s, Paddle 8_. The other has a note scrawled on the back. 

_Call me when you ditch the fed. I’ll be looking to expand once you’ve cleared the competition._

Of course. Natasha wouldn’t have humored him this whole time if there wasn’t something in it for her. If they take out this organization it leaves a perfect void for her to take advantage of—she’ll be the only fence in the city who’ll have had time to prepare, and nobody else will be able to move as quickly to pounce. 

“Oh, before you go,” she says, a faux thoughtful look on her face. “Is there any chance you’d let me buy this from you, just for my personal collection?” She brushes a hand over the fake Ruysch. “I think I’d like to know that I own a piece by Steve Rogers.”

Bucky bites the inside of his cheek on a bitter laugh. Would like to know that she owns a piece of classical art forged by an FBI agent is what she means. 

He wonders if she knew about Bucky’s deal with the FBI, about Steve, before they even set foot in here the other day, or if she just dug it up after their chat with Dum Dum. 

Steve looks at Bucky, uncertain, and Bucky shrugs. He guesses it probably doesn’t matter much one way or another. 

Steve smiles. “Keep it. For your help...sounds like this guy has his own methods I’ll have to get acquainted with anyway.” 

“That’s very generous Steven, thank you.” She turns to look at Bucky, quirking one perfect red eyebrow at him. “James, it’s been a pleasure.” 

“Natasha,” he replies evenly. He’s not sure he can say the same. Or can he? She’s given him a lot to think about. 

Steve scoops up the other four paintings, wrapping them back in their brown paper covering for the trip back to their apartment. 

As they start the long walk down the length of Natasha’s office/gallery/fish shooting barrel, Steve slips his hand into Bucky’s. Bucky darts a glance at him, surprised, before he remembers of course that they are now fake boyfriends as well as partners in crime. 

It’s only after they make their way hand in hand back out into the quiet, abandoned shipyard that Bucky realizes that Natasha never really thought they were a couple. She just cornered him into pretending to keep their cover, which she’d already blown. Just to see if she could. Asshole. 

She probably realized too that once she’d backed him into it, he wasn’t going to be able to tell Steve that it was her just being a dick without explaining the whole situation. Which he’s obviously not going to do. Double asshole. 

Steve squeezes his hand gently, then releases it as they turn the corner, out of sightline from Natasha’s warehouse. 

He turns to Bucky with a pleased grin. 

“So that went pretty well, huh?”


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter one of two for today--I'm liking this double down-Thursday thing!
> 
> Drrrrrruuuuuumrrooooollllll for TUXEDOS y'all. Or maybe this is less of a selling point for other people than me? Whatever I totally didn't spend like an hour looking at reference pics of them both in various tuxes in order to write this...

Bucky hands Steve the innocuous business card when they get back to the apartment. Steve glances at the writing on the back and pockets it without much interest. 

“Thanks. I’ll add it to the file.” 

The other feels like a burning anvil in Bucky’s jacket pocket, but he holds onto it anyway, ignoring the pang of guilt. He can’t afford not to keep his options open at the moment, especially as their case seems to be hurtling along effectively toward resolution. 

Steve spends the afternoon on the phone with the Bureau, getting the expanded parameters of their investigation approved, along with a budget to do what they need to do at the auction. 

Bucky doesn’t cook any elaborate meals today, labeling that as another “danger zone” type of activity at the moment. 

But overall, their time together in the apartment isn’t full of as much awkwardness as Bucky had feared when he’d woken up. Steve is downright gleeful, and hound-dog focused on the break in the case, making copious notes documenting their efforts so far. The pensive, wistful artist of yesterday has been fully replaced by a dogged bureaucrat. 

They go to bed that night without any of the humming tension that filled the air the previous evening. It’s so dull that Bucky manages to fall asleep without even having to try. 

 

Steve is still bustling and efficient the next morning, and Bucky thinks it’s like watching a bee humming around a hive. It’s him in Agent Mode, and it’s so different from the messy painter version of himself that Bucky has an easier and easier time distancing himself from whatever lingering feelings of guilt he has carrying around Natasha’s offer. 

This was the Steve he met in prison, the agent he figured he could work with or around as needed to do what’s best for Bucky. The one he thought he’d had all figured out from that first meeting, and felt no qualms about manipulating. 

Anyway, it’s not like he’s really done anything wrong yet. He got them what they needed from Natasha—she just gave it knowingly instead of unknowingly. That’s alright. She may be a high end crime lord, but she’s not a bad person. And he held up his end of this investigation by getting the information Steve was looking for. That’s all Steve really needs to know about it—he’s happy with the results, he doesn’t need to know how the sausage gets made too. 

If they can go their own ways after this is all over with Bucky having filled his side of their contract, neither one of them can complain that it didn’t work out in the end. 

“Hey, do you have a tux?” Steve asks abruptly, pulling Bucky out of his thoughts. 

“Um, not on me.” He’d managed to stash a good amount of his things where the FBI wouldn’t disturb them when he got arrested, but he’d still lost a bunch from the apartment that they’d cleared out. 

“Okay,” Steve says, frowning at his phone screen in thought. “We’re probably going to have to go get some, looks like this thing’s black tie. Supposedly a ‘charity’ event or whatever.” Steve snorts in derision, presumably at the idea of a criminal operation using charity as a cover, which Bucky could tell him is probably more common than he’d ever want to know. 

“You don’t have one?” _Steve’s_ apartment hasn’t been cleared out by federal agents and impounded any time recently that Bucky knows of. 

Steve scoffs, “Where exactly would I be going in a tuxedo on the regular? I’ve rented one like, twice in my life.” 

“Rented?” Bucky asks in horror. “Like…worn by other people, borrowed for the night rental?” 

Steve gives him a look. “Yes, Bucky, like, college roommate is only getting married once so why bother buying the thing rental.” 

Bucky makes an involuntary sound of disgust. “No, Steve. Not if you’re going out with me. Unacceptable.” 

“I don’t think our bureau budget’s gonna cover a lot more than that, Buck.” 

“Then you and I are going to pay the difference and call it a personal investment, _seriously_ Steve. God. Otherwise people are going to think you’re my limo driver or something. Or just guess you’re a cop.” 

To Bucky’s surprise, Steve’s mouth quirks in a little smile. “Okay,” he says simply, taking another bite of his toast and returning to his phone. 

Okay then. 

After breakfast, they head out on their shopping trip. Steve even lets Bucky pick the shop. They may not have time to get something truly tailored on such short notice, but Bucky knows a place where they’ll at least be able to fit them reasonably before tonight, for a little extra. Any extra is worth it. Bucky shudders inwardly at the thought of wasting Steve’s gorgeous body on an off-the-rack tux. It’s a travesty. Bucky has no respect for Steve’s college roommate for allowing such a thing. 

Bucky banishes Steve to sit in the “husband chairs” at the front of the shop while he consults with the little old woman who owns the place on options. He hesitates over a few flashier options, letting himself dream a little because shit, Steve would be doing any one of these designers a favor by wearing their stuff. Ultimately though he decides on something simple and classic, the only detailing a stripe down the pant. He doesn’t think that whatever appeasing of him Steve is trying to do here will stretch _too_ far. But he comforts himself that at least it’ll fit him right, and that’s more than half the battle. 

The small old lady’s small old husband whisks Steve away to be fitted in the back of the cramped shop, and Bucky turns to looking for himself. 

He considers going the same route—something traditional and sedate. He’s technically on the job for the FBI after all; he should probably dress the part. 

Then he thinks, fuck it. He’s not an agent. They’re barely paying for a piece of it. He’s going to do whatever he wants. And Bucky wants fucking velvet. Suck it FBI. 

The little old lady is either much more efficient at her job or Steve is giving the old man a hard time, because Bucky is done with his fitting and paid up with her at the front before Steve has emerged from the back. 

“Steve!” Bucky calls, after tapping his foot at the counter for a good five minutes. “I’m going to get some groceries at the corner, be back!” 

Buying new clothing always puts Bucky in a good mood, good enough that he’s willing to do some cooking again when they get home. Tonight will probably be fancy finger foods and annoying wines so he figures they’d better carb up to make it through. 

He hums a little through the narrow aisles of the store, throwing things into his basket as the whim takes him. 

Steve is sitting on the curb in front of the shop by the time Bucky comes back, looking extremely dejected. 

“What happened?” Bucky asks suddenly concerned that Steve got a nasty phone call or something while he was in back. 

Steve gives him a pained look. “What do you think?” He downright sulks. “I hate buying clothes. I think that guy made fun of my shoes.” 

Bucky can’t help but throw his head back and downright cackle. Steve glares at him. Bucky laughs a little harder. 

“Up, you punk. You can enjoy not thinking about it for—” he checks his watch, “approximately six and a half hours.” 

“Jerk,” Steve says, standing and brushing off his pants. 

“Come on,” Bucky grabs Steve’s elbow, propelling him back toward the apartment, “I’m making pasta.”

*

Steve is antsy. 

He’s wound up tight like a spring and he’s done absolutely every piece of paperwork and documentation that he can possibly produce to cover what their case file needs at this point. Plus a little extra. And it’s not even lunch yet. 

Steve has felt this kind of cooped up tension ahead of plenty of operations, but usually the other person in the room with him is another agent who’s feeling just like he is and is willing to talk through every single detail of the case over and over to exorcise the pre-operation jitters.

Today, the other person in the room is Bucky. And he is unconcernedly occupied chopping tomatoes. 

Steve does a few more circuits of the apartment, picking things up and setting them down. He shuffles through his notes, adding page numbers just in case. He cleans his gun. 

Finally, he’s apparently being annoying enough that Bucky can’t stand it anymore. 

“Steve, Jesus Christ cool it! Your brain is buzzing so loud I think your teeth are gonna rattle out of your head.”

Steve huffs. “I know, I just can’t think about anything else.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. He goes to the bag of groceries he’d bought earlier for their lunch, fishing inside it for something that he tosses at Steve. “Here. Distract yourself.” 

Steve reaches up to catch it instinctively, finding himself holding a clean, new sketchbook. A pack of pencils hits him in the chest a minute later. He looks up at Bucky speechless, not trusting himself to say anything. 

Bucky rubs the back of his neck and shrugs. “Figured if you weren’t ready to paint again, why not start small? Just see how it feels.” 

“Bucky, I—” Steve finds his voice, “thank you. That’s really…” he trails off. 

Steve honestly isn’t sure _what_ it is. But no one has taken the time to care about this part of Steve’s life in a long time, so even if it’s just a five dollar pad of scratch paper, it’s still making a lump form somewhere in the middle of his trachea. 

“Hey, gotta keep you busy somehow right?” Bucky says glibly, clearly trying to brush past whatever emotional mess he’s causing in Steve currently. “Now go play quietly for a bit huh? I’m cooking here.” 

Steve turns automatically to the couch, and sinks down, cradling the supplies in his hands. 

And his hands remember what to do with them. He flips open the sketchbook, letting his fingers take over. 

He doesn’t really know how much later it is when Bucky drops a plate of amazingly wonderful smelling pasta on the coffee table in front of him, plopping into the armchair opposite. 

Steve looks up at him, and then down at what he’s been drawing. He finds a familiar pair of silvery eyes fringed with dark lashes, depicted in meticulous detail. 

He snaps the sketchbook shut with a guilty blush, shoving it down beside him in the couch cushions. 

Bucky eyes him suspiciously. Steve just smiles and snatches up his pasta. 

“Thanks Buck, smells awesome.” 

And that’s that. 

 

He loses most of the rest of the afternoon to the sketchbook and pencils, though he focuses on drawing things that are _not_ Bucky. It feels good, relearning the shape of things and how he can put them on paper. 

They get a bike messenger to pick up the tuxes and deliver them from the shop as soon as the little old man calls to tell them they’re ready. 

Bucky disappears into the bathroom to attend to his mysterious and evidently elaborate getting-ready process. Steve just shucks his jeans and t-shirt and puts on the suit. He has to admit, it does fit him a lot better than a rental. 

He picks up his tuxedo jacket in one hand and his shoulder holster in the other, slipping it on as he moves back into the living room. He wants to check over his weapon one more time before heading out for the night—not out of any necessity, it’s just a calming ritual he likes to go through the motions of to steady any nerves.

The bathroom door is cracked, and Steve can see a sliver of the space, Bucky moving around in front of the mirror. 

“Steve is that your gun I hear?” he calls as Steve starts the checking it over. 

“Yup,” Steve calls back, hands moving over the pieces by long habit and muscle memory. 

“Gonna ruin the line of your jacket,” Bucky says, but without much actual protest in his voice. 

“Nah,” Steve clicks the gun into place in his holster, and slides his arms into the sleeves of his tux, settling it into place around his collar. “I had the guy make sure there was space and you wouldn’t see it.”

“Aha!” Bucky exclaims, “I _knew_ your fitting took longer than mine. You were getting all fancy with it.” 

Steve chuckles. “Well leaving it behind isn’t really an option tonight. We got no idea how this thing’s going to go.” 

Steve can hear the frown of concern in Bucky’s voice even through the door. “Should we—should you have like, some kind of back-up for this? I mean should we be going in alone if…if you think it might get dicey?”

Steve hesitates, guiltily. Phillips had _very_ much pushed for the exact same thing when he’d called in his plans yesterday afternoon. But Steve had stood his ground, firm that it wouldn’t be dangerous enough to warrant more agents in the room to potentially blow his cover, not yet. He may actually have downplayed the likelihood of their making any real contact with the ring tonight to sell it. It’s still an investigation at this point, he’d told Phillips (and himself), not a full blown operation.

“Steve?” Bucky asks again. 

“I um…I’m not quite ready to bring anybody else in on this.” He says, shooting for casual and unconcerned. “It’s not a big deal, I’m just being prepared. We still…still need more info before I blow this up into a whole big thing.” 

There’s a long pause, and no sound of movement on the other side of the door for a moment. 

“Oh,” Bucky says eventually, “okay.”

Steve gets up quickly, happy for that to be the end of that conversation. The truth is he doesn’t have a good reason not to have called in back-up and full FBI support at this point, and a lot of good reasons that he should have. And he doesn’t want to think too hard about why that is. 

He snatches up the small, tidily wrapped bundle of what he assumes is his bowtie, choosing to focus on that instead. It’s a good distraction, as he is immediately confounded to find that it’s the real kind, the kind that you actually have to tie to make the bow part. 

It even came with instructions—a diagram on a little half-sheet of paper. Steve wonders briefly if that comes standard, or if the little old man from the shop took one look at him and knew he wouldn’t be able to manage without help. 

Even with the drawings in front of him on the kitchen counter, he can’t quite make the thing do what it’s supposed to, and he spends several minutes attempting to make sense of it. It’s just a bow, he grumbles under his breath, how can it possibly be this hard to achieve?

He’s broken out of his struggles by a low whistle behind him, and he turns to see Bucky standing in the bathroom door, regarding him appreciatively. 

“Black is a good look on you, Rogers,” he says with a grin. 

Steve doesn’t even process the compliment because _holy shit_ Bucky looks good. His jacket is made of a soft looking material that’s just screaming for Steve to reach out and run his hands over. The cut of his tux is slim and flattering, making him look taller and hugging his shoulders and his thighs in all the right ways.

Steve shuts his mouth quickly, realizing it’s hanging open. Then he throws being prudent out the window and says what he wants anyway. 

“You look incredible, Buck.” 

A corner of Bucky’s mouth twitches in something that isn’t exactly a smile, it’s something more painful and uncertain. He chews his lip self-consciously for a moment, then gestures at Steve’s useless bowtie. 

“You having trouble there, Quantico?” 

Steve’s nose scrunches in frustration, gesturing with the loose ends of the thing. “I can’t believe you thought I could handle this—I am clearly a pre-tied-bowtie level dresser.” 

That does elicit a genuine smile, Bucky’s eyes crinkling in mirth at Steve’s expense. 

“Come here,” he waves Steve over, “I’ll do it.” 

Steve swallows hard, but obeys, stepping near enough for Bucky to reach for the draped ends of the bowtie where they hang open at Steve’s collar. 

Bucky’s hands move deftly, twisting the silky material into its proper shape. As he tightens it gently so that it sits snug at Steve’s throat, Steve’s hands move without conscious thought to catch at Bucky’s wrists, holding them in place. Bucky closes his eyes with a sharp breath. 

“You really are amazing, Bucky,” Steve says, voice low, rocking forward further into Bucky’s space. 

Bucky’s eyes snap open. “Don’t. Don’t start something you can’t finish, Steve.” His voice is a rough whisper. “Whatever else I deserve from you, I don’t deserve that.” 

Steve fairly leaps back, letting go of Bucky at once. God—Bucky’s right. He’s being such a dick. 

Bucky moves to step away too, but Steve reaches for him. Bucky raises an eyebrow, and Steve pulls his hand back, but still hovers awkwardly tilted into Bucky’s orbit, blundering ahead with something, anything to make the conversation end differently than it just did. To make excuses for himself, maybe. 

“Wait—Bucky, I’m sorry—you’re right, I’m an asshole,” he says, a little urgently. “But it’s not—you know it isn’t you right? I want— _god_ I do. But it shouldn’t happen. It can’t. And…you’re right. You deserve better than me.” 

Bucky searches his face, and Steve hopes he sees something more eloquent there than he’s managing to convey with words—something of the desire and regret battling it out in him. 

“I said I don’t deserve getting dicked around. But I’d take you if you were on offer here.”

Steve hesitates, feeling once again that maddening sensation like he’s standing in the middle of river just ahead of a waterfall, and everything wants to tip him over the edge. All he has to do is just let himself be swept up. But he can’t. So he teeters on the precipice instead, not quite able to step back against the flood but not able to plunge forward either. 

Bucky’s face is full of wry disappointment. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He looks away from Steve, smoothing down the front of his tux jacket. “You’re carrying around a lot of ‘shoulds’ for one person Steve. Better be careful they don’t crush you.” 

He turns away, moving to disappear again through the nearest doorway. 

“Bucky,” Steve says, and his voice sounds desperate to his own ears, “I’m sorry.” 

Bucky pauses, hand on the doorframe, and lets out a small, frustrated sigh. 

“I don’t want you to be sorry Steve. I want you to be whatever you want—that’s the goddamn point.”

He shuts the door with a soft snick behind him.


	9. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as ever, i crave and cherish your comments so let me know what you think about this turn of events :)

Bucky spends the rest of the half hour before it’s time to leave pouting in the bathroom. 

Steve is a hot dumb douche and Bucky hopes he enjoys galloping off into the sunset on that high horse of his. 

Meanwhile, Bucky finds himself feeling a mixture of surprise, pride, and annoyance at finding out that he’s nursing some kind of principles and self-respect he wasn’t previously aware of possessing. 

It’s not lost on Bucky that Steve’s moments of gravitational pull toward Bucky have been connected to his art. They’re both things Steve likes, wants even, but they’re both also things he’s decided are incompatible with the person he’s supposed to be now. 

Well, Steve’s paints and canvases can’t call him out for picking them up, messing around with them for a weekend because the case justifies it, and then dropping them to go back to his “real” life again. But Bucky can. He doesn’t want to be Steve’s guilty pleasure, indulged in within the physical and emotional confines of this apartment and not existing outside of it. 

He’s not exactly sure what he _does_ want—from himself, from life, from Steve, or any of it—but he doesn’t want that. He’s got standards. 

A light knock brings him out of his reverie a little while later, and he opens a door to a serious-eyed Steve who immediately confirms Bucky’s whole take on the matter. 

“Hey we need to get going.” Steve says, then squares up his shoulders, taking a breath. “Also I’m sorry about before. I hope we can talk more about it later. But I need you to know that I’m leaving it at the door tonight, and I hope you can too. Because this job really could go bad, and I need both of us undistracted and on our game. That make sense?”

Steve takes a deep breath after he’s done with the little speech, and Bucky just stares back for a beat. 

“Uh huuuh.” Is what he eventually goes with, and manages not to let it be too sarcastic sounding. “You got it, partner.” 

Steve slumps a little in relief, like he’s glad they can both be so mature about it or some shit. 

“Yeah. Yeah okay—you all set?”

Bucky bites down on a sardonic reply. This thing Steve’s doing, this compartmentalization, it’s not news. They’ll leave it at the door, like Steve said. 

“All set. Let’s catch some criminals.” 

 

The FBI budget does stretch to cover a cab tonight, in deference to their tuxes, for which Bucky’s grateful. 

Steve was right about the fact that the auction is a little bit more of a to-do than Bucky would have expected otherwise, since it’s a charity event and all. It’s practically a gala. Bucky is deeply grateful to himself for insisting on decent suits. 

His taste and choices are almost immediately rewarded by some appraising and approving looks cast their way as they drift through the gallery’s lobby. They are surrounded by a crowd of well-heeled people speedily getting drunk enough on champagne to buy whatever ugly art Zola puts in front of them in the name of altruism. 

Bucky’s amused as he realizes fairly quickly that Steve doesn’t really have a handle on the interest he’s getting. The first woman who is actually bold enough to approach him with a glass of wine gets politely “ma’am-ed” by him, which of course sends her on her way at once. Bucky stifles a laugh. Steve looks confused for a brief moment, before shrugging and going back to surveying the room. 

He’s less amused when he leaves Steve for two-minutes to get them both a drink (if they aren’t at least holding something it’ll be noticeable, he argues to a protesting Steve) and comes back to find him in a different woman’s well-manicured clutches. She’s wearing a painted-on black dress that Bucky can’t deny she has the figure to pull off—good for her, Bucky isn’t stingy acknowledging these things—and doing her best to get Steve to notice as well. Steve is giving her a bland look of polite interest, which Bucky is certain will _not_ be enough to give her the hint.

“Hey sweetheart,” Bucky says, leaning up to give Steve a possessive kiss. Bucky can see the flash of inquiry that passes over his face as Bucky pulls back and holds out one of the two wine glasses, but he recovers almost at once. “They didn’t have a zin, hope the malbec is okay.” 

“Malbec should be fine, thanks _honey_.” Steve says, with just enough emphasis for Bucky to hear the dry question in it. “This is Christine.” 

Bucky gives the woman his best, charming smile, offering a hand to shake. “James.”

“It’s a pleasure,” she says, with an ironic curl to her mouth. “You know a malbec sounds like just what I need.” 

“Oh I’m sorry, I should’ve offered,” Steve says, with a little frown, “I could—”

Christine stops him with a little wave. “No no, you stay. I’m going to take a look around. It was nice meeting you both…enjoy.” 

She says the last with a little wink at Bucky, and gracefully retreats from the corner they’ve ended up standing in. Bucky silently wishes her luck. He likes a lady that can swing at a couple of strikes without too much disappointment. But he doesn’t think she’ll be disappointed for long, in that dress with this crowd. 

“What was that about?” Steve asks, his brow a little furrowed, turning to Bucky. 

Bucky shrugs. “We’ve got a cover to keep up, remember?”

Steve’s face clears at once, remembering their supposed new cover as boyfriend-partners-in-crime. 

“Oh. Right. Good thinking. Hey keep an eye out for paddle eight okay? I see some people holding theirs already, maybe we can get a head start.” 

He reaches out for Bucky’s hand, lacing their fingers together without any more said about it. Then he turns back to the crowd, eyes following various people as they cross the room here and there in little clusters. 

Bucky tamps down a smile. Okay, so he’d come up and kissed Steve out of pique and a little bit of jealousy. And yes, this cover isn’t strictly necessary at this point. But look how well it’s all working out for him! Just let Steve try and forget about him while they’re working when he also thinks part of working is pretending to be his boyfriend—hah! Serves him and his unnecessary compartmentalizing right. 

Really though, maintaining this aspect of their cover isn’t the worst idea from a working standpoint, Bucky muses a few minutes later. Steve isn’t particularly chatty, instead laser focused on taking in the faces and details of the people milling around them. The way they’re standing now, apart from the crowd in a quiet corner, hands linked and Bucky’s body angled toward Steve, it just looks like they’re a couple too wrapped up in each other to socialize. If they weren’t holding hands, they’d probably look like two weirdos at best and at worst like exactly what they are—two cops (or cop adjacent, technicalities) casing the place. 

So, Bucky’s way again proves both better _and_ more enjoyable. Point Barnes.

Soon they hear the announcement being made over the speakers that bidding will be beginning for lots one through thirty. Bucky notices that he and Steve are part of only a handful of people who make their way into the auction at the announcement, most of the patrons presumably waiting for the more interesting and valuable pieces being sold later in the evening. That’s good, Bucky thinks. Hopefully a more sparsely populated room will make it easier to spot their guy. 

Steve moves casually but quickly through the crowd, towing Bucky behind him without seeming to rush, giving Bucky a moment to appreciate that yeah okay Steve is pretty good at this. He picks seats for them near the back of the rows to the left hand side—not all the way back, but enough that their target should reasonably end up positioned somewhere in front of them. He makes a gallant little gesture for Bucky to sit first, and even though Bucky knows it’s because he wants to be on the aisle it still makes his heart do a dumb little tripping thing. God come on, he scolds himself, you can’t be that much of a sap. 

The seats in front of them fill with scattered backs of tuxedo jackets and evening gowns, the hum of conversation rising as people settle in. 

Steve pulls out an auction program and a pen, prepared to mark down notes about their bidder as the gallery owner, Zola, steps up to the podium to thank everyone for coming. Bucky takes an instant disliking to him. Even without the ambiguous possibility that he’s the front for a crime ring, Bucky wouldn’t trust him. He’s got that weasely kind of face that says if he isn’t guilty of this he’s guilty of something else. You don’t come by that kind of shiftiness through innocent happenstance; it’s definitely earned. 

There’s some tepid applause for his remarks, before he gets out of the way for the auctioneer to open the floor. 

“Here,” Steve says, low into Bucky’s ear, “can you handle the bidding? I can try to get a better look that way.” 

Bucky nods, taking their paddle. He wonders if it means something that Steve trusts him enough to delegate at this point. He can feel his anticipation mounting, but there are several items auctioned off before there’s any sign of their mysterious number eight. At last, an obscure late nineteenth century impressionist landscape hits the stage. 

“Can I start the bidding with fifty?” The auctioneer asks, following it almost in the same breath with, “Thank you, number eight, fifty to you, and do I hear seventy-five?”

Bucky raises their number hastily, trying to catch a glimpse of the bidder. He can see is that it’s definitely a man, but he’s seated in the second row on the right hand side of the stage, so his view is mostly blocked. All he catches is the back of a tuxedo jacket and a shaved bald head. 

Still, outbidding someone when you have no upper limit and your only job is to win is pretty easy and also very enjoyable. Bucky is smiling by the time the auctioneer awards it to him. He could get used to this rush, spending other people’s money and not even having to care that much what it’s for. The painting itself is almost woefully bland, but he supposes that under the right hands it was meant to become something more impressive—a Monet, maybe, or a Boudin. 

Steve makes hurried notes in the margins of the auction guide, sitting up very straight and tall in his chair, and Bucky wonders if he is able to note anything about the man’s back that Bucky can’t see. 

Two lots later there’s a small, dingy portrait that regains the man’s interest. He bids a little higher on this one against Bucky before letting it go. The next, an architectural scene, is pretty enough on its own that it draws a few other competing bids before leaving only Bucky and paddle eight in competition for it. The man shifts in his seat when the auctioneer asks if he’d like to go any higher, and he gives a terse shake of his head. 

Three more pieces go much the same, and the little Bucky can see of the guy’s back is getting more and more rigid each time he’s outbid. 

There’s only one more piece remaining in this set, and Bucky can tell that the man isn’t surprised anymore when Bucky starts bidding against him. He gives in quickly, and makes a sharp, frustrated gesture when the auctioneer asks him if he’s out. 

They have to sit through a handful more, though Bucky gets why none of the selected pieces were listed in the final rounds of bidding. Something about getting to the end of the list makes people more free with their money, getting in their last chances for the round, and each of those items goes for more than it probably would have earlier in the evening. 

Bucky’s nerves are humming with adrenaline, feeling triumphant. He turns to Steve with a grin, but sees that Steve’s blue gaze is fixed on the bidder. Right, no time to get carried away. Bucky turns to keep an eye on him too. 

When the auctioneer announces that it’s the end of the first round of bidding, and that lots thirty through sixty will start again in half an hour, everyone begins the rustling motions of standing up to return to the lobby. Steve and Bucky stand too, but linger as if over their guide, still trying to get a glimpse of the guy. 

At last, he stands up too, hands straightening the bottom of his jacket stiffly. He turns away from the stage, looking straight in their direction—

And the bottom of Bucky’s stomach drops out, excitement and adrenaline turning instantly into cold dread. 

He spins to hide his face, and grabs at Steve’s sleeve. 

“Steve,” he hisses, keeping his voice just this side of panicked, “I have to get out of here. _Now_.”

Steve, who’d locked on to the man and was undoubtedly memorizing his features to match later, hesitates, turning to Bucky in confusion. “You—what?”

“I have to—Steve I _know him_. He’s one of Pierce’s—god, if he recognizes me—I need to get out of here!”

Steve’s confusion gives way to concern and mild alarm, but he grips Bucky’s hand where it’s clenched, white-knuckled at his sleeve, and holds onto it steadily. 

“Okay! Okay, yeah.” His head swivels, checking the exits, and back to Bucky’s face which he’s sure has gone totally pale and tight with fear. “Come on, this way.” 

Steve puts his arm around Bucky’s waist, a gesture that probably just looks affectionate to anyone observing. But he doesn’t guide him back toward the lobby where the crowd is again milling and laughing. Bucky is split between anxiety—that’s the way to the exit—and gratitude to be moving away from the crowd. 

Bucky doesn’t really register at first that Steve is murmuring to him, something calming and reassuring low into his ear. He doesn’t know if Steve really knows what he’s saying either, but they look again like lovers wrapped up in each other, rather than a panicked man and his FBI handler. Steve walks them around the stage, and out into one of the back hallways of the gallery. It must be the way to the restrooms, because there are still too many people here for Bucky’s liking—still too out in the open. But Steve doesn’t stop moving, instead darting a glance at the few people waiting at the bathroom doors, and then opening one marked “Staff Only,” and nudging Bucky inside. 

The door leads to a dimly lit staircase, descending into a basement space filled with shelves—Bucky thinks it must be the storeroom for the gallery. He feels himself breathing a little slower as they escape the sound and sense of eyes above. 

Steve moves them through the fluorescent-lit space around a series of shelves and cabinets, finally pulling Bucky into a half-hidden nook between two tall industrial filing cabinets. He turns Bucky so that he can have his back to the wall, and puts his hands on his shoulders, grounding him. 

“Hey, we’re okay, we’re out of it,” he says, giving Bucky’s shoulders a firm little shake and trying to catch his eyes, “now, tell me what that was about? What do you mean you knew him? You knew number eight?”

Bucky swallows hard and takes a deep breath, closing his eyes to try to stop them from darting wildly around the space like a spooked horse. He nods. 

“His name’s Sitwell.” Bucky manages to rasp, taking another steadying breath. “I don’t—I don’t know what he does for Pierce. He doesn’t work with his private collections so he wasn’t at my trial.” 

“So how do you know him?”

“He—I’m not sure he’d recognize me—but I saw him when Pierce hired me.” 

Steve’s hands go very still on Bucky’s shoulders. “When Pierce what?”

Bucky opens his eyes, meeting Steve’s and willing him to listen, not to jump to conclusions. 

“He hired me. About a year before I robbed him. It was a—a shipment that had gotten picked up by some competitor, he needed somebody to retrieve it. I’m—I was good at that kind of thing.” 

Steve’s gaze is steely, searching Bucky’s face, and Bucky plunges ahead. “But when I found it—it wasn’t—it was _people_ he thought I'd just deliver to him like nothing. Five girls, barely spoke any English. I—Pierce is not a good person. He isn’t even a good person in my world, Steve. He traffics people, weapons, dirty drugs, like it’s the same thing as a painting or a stolen car.” He grinds his jaw. “But it’s not. It’s not the same.” 

“So you—you what? Robbed his collection as some kind of retribution? Street justice?” Steve asks, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. 

“No—yes—I don’t know—” Bucky gestures helplessly, movements jerky. “I guess I hoped—maybe if you guys started looking into him as a victim, you’d get clued into something worth investigating him as a criminal.” He bites his lip. “And I guess I figured if that didn’t work then yeah, at least he’d know not to try to fuck with me again and get me involved with that sick shit. Or that’s what I thought the first time.”

“And the other two?”

Bucky can’t read Steve’s expression now. His hands are still on Bucky’s shoulders, but his face is impassive, intent. Bucky knows he’s being weighed here, and he has no idea where Steve’s verdict is pointing. 

“The other two I knew I needed to get arrested, because being in prison was a lot better than being dead.”

Steve lets out a sharp breath through his nose. “And you…you would’ve…?”

Bucky just nods. “Almost did. He was going to kill me, Steve. He uses people when it works for him and he gets rid of them when he doesn’t. He’s not fucking around.” 

“And you’re sure? You’re sure it’s Pierce himself and not someone working for him, someone like Sitwell maybe…?” He trails off as Bucky shakes his head vehemently. 

“It’s him.”

Steve looks at him another long moment, then drops his head with a long breath. “Shit.” 

“Steve, I’m sorry—I can’t—I have to—”

“Bucky, don’t,” Steve cuts him off, his voice fierce. He steps in closer, moving his hands from Bucky’s shoulders to the sides of his face, so that Bucky’s focus narrows immediately to Steve’s blazing look, not sure what it means. “Don’t be sorry. You didn’t—you couldn’t have known this was him. But this means we have a shot at him—at bringing him down. And I’m not—I won’t let anything happen to you, okay? We can still do this. And you’re going to be okay.”

Bucky blinks a few times, trying to take in what Steve is saying. He’s not angry. Not with Bucky. 

“What are you going to do?” Bucky asks in a whisper. 

Steve’s lips thin into a line, thinking. “I’ve got to go back up—I have to be there to make the claims for our pieces and make contact with—with Sitwell. But you can stay here. Just wait it out, and I’ll do the rest. He doesn’t need to see you. And we’ll…we’ll pull you from the rest of the operation. So that you don’t have to get anywhere near Pierce.”

Bucky pulls in a shaky breath, and nods. 

“Okay,” he agrees, “just be careful. I’ll wait—”

The sound of the door opening at the top of the stairs stops him dead, and he and Steve look at each other desperately, eyes wide. 

Two men are descending the stairs. 

And because Bucky’s luck has evidently turned the wrong direction for the evening, one of them is unquestionably Jasper Sitwell.


	10. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright alright alright time for some ACTION! I apologize for the cliffhanger I left you with...but also I regret nothing because this is worth the wait, hopefully ;)
> 
> (M rating material ahead, friends).

The voices are coming nearer. Steve hears the man he thinks must be Sitwell cut the other off as they hit the bottom of the staircase. 

“Of fucking _course_ they knew what they were doing, Rumlow! Are you stupid? He outbid me every time and didn’t bid on a single other item.”

Steve turns back to Bucky, who is practically vibrating with tension. “Stay here. Stay hidden,” he says to him in a whisper. 

Bucky shakes his head, eyes wide and looking past Steve. “There’s nowhere to hide. He’ll see me one way or another.” 

“You said maybe he wouldn’t recognize you?” 

Bucky turns a look to him that fills Steve with a wash of fear—it’s a look like Bucky already thinks this is over. 

“Maybe,” he whispers back with a tight smile. “We’ll see.” 

Before Steve can stop him, Bucky has pushed past him, stepping out into the main aisle of the cramped storage space toward where the two voices are headed their way. 

“Sitwell!” he calls, straightening the bottom of his jacket as Steve leaps after him. 

Steve stops half a step behind Bucky in time to see two men turn their heads their direction. One is bald, with fussy little gold-rimmed glasses and a sour expression. The other man is a thug, not dressed in a tux but a generic looking sort of black security uniform. He’s got sharp, almost harsh features under a military haircut. He’s practically snarling. 

“What do you want?” Sitwell asks, “What are you doing down here?”

“Looking for you, obviously. We’ve got business to discuss.” 

Bucky’s tone is confident and arch—almost playful. Steve spares him a sideways glance. His body language is relaxed, one hand tucked in the pocket of his slacks, and a cocky smirk on his face. He looks utterly in control. It’s a transformation Steve wouldn’t believe if he hadn’t seen it before his eyes. He worries that this is the wrong play, but if Bucky can do this Steve has to back him up. He pulls his eyes back toward Sitwell and Rumlow, who are closing the distance between them in the narrow space. There’s anger and aggression on both of their faces, but there doesn’t seem to be special recognition. Steve tries to see if Rumlow has a weapon, but can’t quite get a good look. 

“I don’t think so.” Sitwell says back with a sneer. “You want something you can call my secretary.”

“Well in that case,” Bucky shrugs, looking over at Steve, “let’s go, Steve. We have some pieces to pick up.” 

“Wait—” Sitwell says, as they make as if to leave. “Mm, that was you.” He pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with here.” 

“Of course I do,” Bucky says with an easy tone. “Pierce runs you. We want a meeting—with Pierce—to discuss a proposal for your little…” he gives a condescending little wave, “forgery set-up.” 

Sitwell’s sour expression continues to fold in on itself into something even uglier as Bucky names Pierce, color rising in his cheeks. 

“Listen, asshole.” He says, voice shaking with anger, “Pierce eats guys like you. And he’ll crack me into a pan and make an omelet of me too if I don’t deliver these pieces. So I’d think very carefully about whether you really want to do this.” 

Bucky gives Sitwell a slow, shark-like grin, an expression Steve remembers—he’d used it when he was bragging about his reputation to Steve. Now he realizes it’s Bucky’s most convincing piece of armor. 

“I’ll worry about my own breakfast arrangements, thanks.” His tone is light, but the words are snapped off at the ends like he’s biting them in two. “You—I don’t care so much about that. Get us the meeting.” 

Bucky’s gaze is locked on Sitwell, and Sitwell can’t seem to look away either. 

Luckily, Steve’s got his eye on Rumlow. 

The dark-haired man only telegraphs his intentions a heartbeat before he lunges at Bucky, aiming to take him down around his middle. Instead, Steve hurls his own body into him, changing the direction of their momentum and hurtling them into one of the sets of shelves. Rumlow changes focus remarkably fast, twisting around to grab onto Steve, scrabbling at his jacket. Steve brings a knee up into his stomach, making Rumlow double over with a huff of breath, dropping the gun that had appeared in his hand. But Rumlow corrects, dropping all the way to the ground and kicking out at Steve’s knees, knocking him off balance. Steve pulls something round and wrapped in brown paper off the shelf with him as he goes, bringing to down with a crash over Rumlow’s head. In the moment it takes Rumlow to stagger back to his knees, Steve is on him, wrapping him in a chokehold around the neck with one arm and freeing his gun to point at his head with the other, kicking his gun away under the shelves. Rumlow goes still. 

“Are you done?” Sitwell asks, too calmly for Steve’s liking. He hauls Rumlow up to standing, and feels his heart go still as he realizes why—Sitwell has a gun too. And it’s pointing at Bucky. “Because if you’re done we’re kind of at a standstill here, and we’d like to be on our way.” 

Bucky is angled half toward Steve and Rumlow—Steve thinks he must have turned momentarily from Sitwell to see what was happening when Sitwell drew on him—his hands raised in surrender. 

Steve’s eyes dart between Bucky and Sitwell, uncertain. He won’t be able to drop Rumlow and disarm Sitwell quickly enough to make sure he can’t get the shot. He doesn’t want to let Rumlow go at all actually, but obviously Sitwell is right, they’re at an impasse—

Before he can even finish the thought, Bucky’s hand snaps out to grab Sitwell by the wrist that holds the gun, pulling Sitwell hard toward him, while his other hand cracks out with the heel to crunch against Sitwell’s nose. He reels back, coughing, and Bucky calmly levels Sitwell’s own pistol at him, two handed and without the slightest hint of a tremor. 

“Now,” Bucky says, coolly, “about that meeting.” 

Sitwell coughs again, wiping at his bloodied nose with his sleeve. “Go to hell.” 

Without dropping his gaze from the other man’s eyes, Bucky flicks the safety off of the gun in his hand, cocking the hammer with a resounding click. 

“The meeting?” He says again, no change in his inflection. 

Under Steve’s arm, Rumlow tries briefly to drop his weight and twist out of his grip, but finds that Steve’s hold is a vice he won’t be breaking out of. Sitwell flicks a glance in their direction, then back at Bucky. Finally, Sitwell slumps, recognizing that his advantage is well and truly lost. 

“Fine. But I can’t promise he’ll be willing to hear anything you’ve got to say.” 

“I just need five minutes. Then he can decide whatever he wants.” 

Sitwell gestures impatiently at Steve, flapping his hand toward Rumlow. Steve releases the man slowly, making sure to he’s still aware of the gun pointed at his skull so that he behaves. He jerks out of Steve’s grip, and Steve thinks distantly that the worst injury he’s sustained tonight is probably the severe bruising to his ego. 

Sitwell straightens his jacket and cuffs, an oddly fastidious motion on a man whose cuffs happen to be covered in his own blood. 

“Night after tomorrow. Pierce will be having dinner at Claire de Lune. The lot behind it has an unoccupied office building. Third floor. Bring the shit you bought tonight—I’m going to tell Pierce you’re donating it as a goodwill gesture. You can hope that makes him less likely to kill you but I wouldn’t count on it.” 

Bucky smiles. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

Sitwell flips him off before spinning on his heel, jerking his head at Rumlow to follow. They climb the stairs and vanish into the gallery above without another word. 

Bucky drops his hands with the gun in them instantly, uncocking the hammer and flicking on the safety in a fluid motion. He thrusts the gun at Steve, who steps forward to take it, holstering his own and tucking Sitwell’s into the back of his waistband as he looks Bucky over. Steve can see that he is shaking now, a slight quiver wracking his frame under the soft material of his suit. 

“Jesus, Bucky,” Steve says quietly, reaching out and pulling Bucky a few steps back down the row, back to the little cubby hole of cabinets they’d been half-concealed in before. It doesn’t really offer anything more in the way of safety or privacy from the rest of the basement, but it at least gives the impression of being closed off from the rest of the space. 

Steve wraps his arms around Bucky, pulling him tight to his chest as he continues to ride out the rest of his shakes from the adrenaline and fear bleeding out of his system. 

“What were you thinking?” Steve asks him after he’s calmed a little, keeping his tone gentle rather than accusing. “You scared the shit out of me.” 

Bucky gives a weak chuckle from where his face is pressed into Steve’s shoulder. “I knew there was nowhere to hide down here. So I just figured either he’d recognize me or he wouldn’t—either way it’d be better if he didn’t find us hiding in a corner.” 

Steve pushes him back, gently, so he can look into his face. He knows his voice is a little incredulous when he asks, “So he could just shoot you on sight out in the open instead?”

“He wouldn’t have gotten a shot in. And anyway, he tried it _without_ recognizing me, and look how that went for him.” Bucky tries for something like a smirk—but Steve’s seen behind the veil of that expression now, and he knows it’s just a front. 

“I told you I wouldn’t let anything happen. I could’ve dealt with them and they’d never have known you were here.” 

“We got the meeting—that’s what mattered.” 

Steve shakes his head, surprised at his own vehemence, and says, “That’s _not_ what mattered. He could’ve killed you.”

Bucky’s jaw is clenched, working over some emotion Steve can’t name. “This was probably our only shot at this. I knew how important it is that you—that we got it right. I wasn’t going to be the one to fuck it up.” 

God, Steve doesn’t know what to say to that. Bucky’s staring at him, eyes grey in the dim basement lighting, looking for something in his face, but Steve doesn’t know what. He fumbles for the words to say what he means, to tell Bucky what he would feel if Bucky thought that this case was worth his life. Worth that to Steve.

“Bucky if I—if you did that because you thought I’d be mad about the case I—that’s not what’s important—” 

Bucky lowers his eyes, not meeting Steve’s anymore, lashes veiling his expression. 

“So what is?” He asks, the words coming out a little husky. 

Steve knows that answering with “you are” or any variation on it is way too corny, even for him. So instead he cups Bucky’s face with his hands and tilts it back up to catch his lips in a swift, hard kiss. 

“We’re on the job,” Bucky says when they break apart, though he’s already sliding his arms around Steve’s waist under his jacket. 

“I don’t care,” Steve says brushing a thumb over Bucky’s perfect cheekbone and leaning in to kiss him again. 

“You did this afternoon,” Bucky says, pulling back. 

Steve huffs. “You were right this afternoon, and I’m an idiot. You’re incredible, Bucky.” 

Bucky’s tongue flicks along his lower lip, and he smiles as Steve’s eyes drop to the movement, an impish crinkle around his eyes. “Well all right then.” 

This time when Steve kisses him, Bucky kisses back, demanding and open-mouthed. The adrenaline of the confrontation with Sitwell and the tussle with Rumlow is still singing through him, all of his senses on fire and consumed with the feeling of Bucky’s mouth and his hands splayed across Steve’s back. Bucky nips at Steve’s lower lip, sending a little shower of sparks down his spine and making him step forward so that Bucky’s back is at the wall. Bucky lets out a sharp inhale as Steve’s body presses him against it, sliding one of his thighs between Bucky’s. 

Bucky’s head tips back to survey him, lips parted and eyes heavy-lidded, exposing the long line of his neck. His heavy breathing matches Steve’s, and Steve watches the place where Bucky’s pulse pounds at the edge of his collar, fascinated by the small but violent _life_ in the little movement. 

Steve drops one of his hands from Bucky’s face to rest against his side, palm wide to feel Bucky’s ribcage under his fingers. With the other he reaches for the neatly tucked end of Bucky’s bowtie, giving it a tug so that the whole thing falls open against his shirt. Turns out Steve really does like the real thing better than a pre-tied one. Bucky remains still, though his lungs are still pushing unevenly against Steve’s hand on his side, and watches as Steve unbuttons the top two buttons of his collar, baring the column of his neck. 

Steve’s lips brush over the pulse point, where Bucky’s heart seems to be reminding them both _we’re alive, we’re alive, we’re alive_. Then they find the hollow of Bucky’s throat, settling there with a flick of his tongue. It’s a soft, slow thing, but it elicits a gasp from Bucky and an arch of his back, dragging Steve closer with his hands now at his hips. Steve does it again, and scrapes his teeth down across the exposed edge of Bucky’s collar bone, all agonizing slowness. But then Bucky moans, pushing up against Steve and snapping him back with a sense of urgency. Of needing now. 

He dives again after Bucky’s mouth, kisses rough and feverish as he grips Bucky’s hipbones, pinning him to the wall so that Steve can grind down against him. Bucky moans again and Steve lets out a small, desperate noise in response as Bucky widens his stance and wraps his arms around Steve’s neck. They’re pressed tight together from head to toe, legs tangled so that their hips can lock into place and he doesn’t have to guess if Bucky is as turned on as he is. They’re both hard against each other, insistent and unignorable and Steve can’t help but slide a hand from Bucky’s hip to palm him through his pants. 

“ _Fuck_ Steve,” Bucky rasps, rolling his hips into the touch, “don’t make me ruin this fucking tuxedo.” 

Steve smiles against Bucky’s ear, dropping his hand again to grip his hipbone. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He says, pulling back from Bucky’s arms with a half step. 

“No, not like—” Bucky starts, protesting the introduction of space between them regardless of his worries for his suit. But he stops cold as Steve sinks to his knees in front of him, hands sliding down his velvet covered thighs. “Oh—oh fuck.” Bucky’s eyelashes flutter a little and he takes a deep breath, but his eyes don’t leave Steve’s—even half-closed and unfocused with arousal. 

“This okay?” Steve asks. Let it not be said that Steve isn’t a gentleman, even barely thinking straight with the solid muscle of Bucky’s thighs under his hands. 

“Yes,” Bucky breathes, combing a slightly shaky hand through Steve’s hair, “god—anything.” 

Steve doesn’t hesitate then, flicking open Bucky’s pants and pulling him free. He strokes him a few times, slowly, so that he can watch his reaction—Bucky’s kissed-dark mouth dropping open. He looks thoroughly debauched already, and the fire in Steve’s gut gives another flare wondering just how wrecked Bucky’s expression can get once Steve is actually trying. 

The hand in his hair tightens as soon as Steve gets his mouth on him, and Steve lets out a moan of his own. He starts slowly, both for the pleasure of drawing this out as long as he can to hear the needy little sounds dropping from Bucky’s lips, and for the fact that it’s been a while. He warms up to it quickly though, and the fear of being rusty is lost in the enjoyment of what he can do to the man in front of him with his lips and tongue and throat. 

Blissful minutes pass as Steve works Bucky over and Steve can tell from both of his hands clutching and unclutching convulsively in his hair that he’s enjoying himself, though Bucky’s hips remain very still trying not to push into him. Steve appreciates the thoughtfulness, but is also very interested in what he can do to break through the last of that self-control. He slides his hands up from Bucky’s thighs to grip his ass, urging him to thrust forward into his throat. 

Bucky obliges, gripping a handful of Steve’s hair to take him in further once, twice, three times—and the movement of his hips almost immediately stutters and grows erratic. 

“I’m almost—” he manages in a low voice, fists tightening in Steve’s hair. 

Steve hums in acknowledgement, but doesn’t back off—sparing Bucky’s tuxedo any mess was kind of the point, after all. 

Bucky’s body goes rigid a moment later with release, and Steve closes his eyes in satisfaction, enjoying the uncontrolled leap of Bucky’s muscles under his hands as he rides it out. 

Bucky has barely sighed out the last of his orgasm when he’s reaching down to haul Steve back up by his lapels, burying his face in Steve’s neck. Steve smiles a little, honestly pretty pleased with himself, and rearranges Bucky’s boxers and pants while Bucky sags against him. 

Steve tries to step away, but Bucky evidently isn’t entirely spent, and grips the back of his neck, holding him in place but tipping his head against the wall again to get a better look. His movements are languid, and his voice rough. 

“Look at you,” Bucky says, almost reverently, “you were just on your knees but you still look fucking angelic…didn’t even muss your shirt.” 

He runs light fingers over the top of Steve’s collar, making Steve shiver, still buzzing with want. Bucky bites his bottom lip—it’s a habit Steve has noted before, but never when his mouth was shiny from being kissed, or the eyes above them dark and blissed out, and Steve shudders heatedly at the picture he makes. Bucky hooks a finger over the top of Steve’s dress pants, brushing the sensitive sliver of skin above his hip bone. 

Bucky smiles again, filthy and teasing, as Steve can’t help but push up toward Bucky’s hand. 

“Want me to do something about that?” He asks, moving to tug Steve’s dress shirt free of his waistband. 

But Steve stops him, grabbing onto his wrists to hold his hands in place. 

“Hang on,” he says, though he’s panting a little. 

Bucky’s gaze is a little sharper as he raises his eyebrows, a question and something like the beginning of concern there. 

Steve leans forward, pressing their foreheads together, and Bucky closes his eyes, sighing. 

“Take me home?” 

Bucky’s eyes flick back open, surprised. Then a slow grin spreads over his face. He lifts a hand to grasp Steve’s jaw, tipping his head back to kiss him again, deep and filthy, rocking their hips together just enough to make Steve unsteady on his feet. By the time he pulls away Steve is one hundred percent ready to forget he said anything and just go with whatever Bucky says _right now_. But Bucky pulls back, carefully fixing Steve’s dress shirt where it’s been rucked up over his belt. 

He laces their fingers together with deliberate care, and Steve notices how easy and familiar it feels. 

“You got it, Stevie. Let’s go home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO excited to hear what you guys think of this chapter...drop a comment and let me know!


	11. Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all of your comments you guys, i am LIVING for them.

Later that night, there’s nothing but dim moonlight and the hushed, even sound of their breath filling the small space of the bedroom, as Bucky traces lazy patterns over the soft expanse of Steve’s back. 

The detritus of the earlier part of the evening is scattered around the floor, haphazard pieces of tuxedoes and shirts and socks. When they’d first gotten back, triple locking the door behind them before stumbling here, Bucky had been delighted to find that Steve could be anything but quiet. But now, sleepy and sated, he lies stretched out on his stomach across half of Bucky’s bed, arms tucked underneath a pillow and breathing lightly. Bucky isn’t asleep yet, instead lying on his side, running his fingers idly across Steve’s skin, mapping out the curve of his spine and the angles of his shoulder blades, up and down and back again. 

He’s contented. Happy even. And in more than a post-lay kind of way. He thinks maybe he’s been putting more effort than he realized into keeping Steve at arms’ length these past few days. That distance closed…it feels like a weight lifted, there’s a lightness in his chest making him smile even in the dark stillness of the room and keeping him awake when he should be exhausted. He just wants a few more moments of this—this peace. 

That Steve had taken the plunge _out there_ —in the real world—it means something to Bucky. He’s not sure quite what yet, but there are pieces sliding into place in him that feel like they fit. 

He leans in, sheets rustling around his waist, to ghost a kiss over Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve stirs a little, and turns his head on the pillow so that he’s facing Bucky, a sleepy smile curving his lips. 

“You still awake?” he mumbles. 

“Yeah,” Bucky replies, voice muted not to disturb the quiet. 

Steve’s eyes drift shut again, but he rolls over, edging up in the bed a little. 

“Come’ere.” He says, wrapping his arms around Bucky and reeling him closer. 

Bucky tucks into his side with a sigh, Steve’s arms circling his shoulders and Bucky’s hand resting on Steve’s chest. Steve nuzzles his cheek drowsily in Bucky’s hair with a contented noise. Lying like this, legs tangled together and skin to skin, it’s almost hard to tell where one ends and the other starts. In some ways, it feels more dauntingly intimate than anything else they’ve shared—Bucky can’t fault the sex, it was superb—but there’s something vulnerable and immediate about watching the slow rise and fall of Steve’s breathing as the other man falls asleep wrapped up against him. 

“Bucky?” Steve breaths into Bucky’s hair. 

“Yeah?”

“You were so good tonight.” 

Bucky gives a soft chuckle. “Well thanks, you were not at all disappointing either.” 

Steve laughs too, the sound thrumming through his chest against Bucky’s ear. “No, not that—I mean, that too—but I meant…earlier. With Sitwell.” 

Bucky swallows a little convulsively, a faded echo of the fear he’d felt at the time. “Oh, that.” 

“When I looked up and saw he had that gun on you I thought—I just didn’t know how it could go well for either of us. And then you—I didn’t know you could do that.”

Bucky grins against Steve’s chest, and nips a little bite at the edge of his collar bone. “Ah you liked that huh? Me breaking a guy’s nose and taking his gun off him?”

Steve gives another low chuckle that turns into a half groan as he admits, “Shaddup—fuck, I really did.”

“I can do a lot of things you don’t know about,” Bucky says, trying to go for coy but finding instead that he can’t help thinking about how many other ways that scenario could have gone. 

Steve seems to hear the flatness in his tone, and squeezes the arm around his shoulders a little tighter, letting Bucky curl into the comforting circle of strength. He’s okay. It turned out okay. 

“I’m serious though,” Steve says, his voice losing a little more of its drowsy edge. “It was a brave, big risk and you did what you had to do. You were really freaked out and you just—you just turned it on a dime and made that whole thing happen. Like it was no big deal—but I know it was.” 

Bucky lets out a long breath. “I’m not that brave Steve. Just when I’m out of options.” 

There’s a long pause. Long enough that Bucky wonders if Steve has decided to drop it, or just fallen back asleep. 

“Like how you got arrested?” he asks at last. 

Bucky squirms a little in Steve’s arms, though not enough to make him break his hold. 

“Did you mean what you said, about doing it on purpose? Trying to get someone onto Pierce?” Steve persists.

“I did it on purpose so I’d get my ass thrown safely in jail where Pierce would lose interest in me. It’s not the same.” He frowns, feeling like he needs to disabuse Steve of whatever version of events he’s concocted here. “I’m still a thief, Steve. A thief and a fence and a con man and a lot of other stuff. I did everything I was convicted for, and a lot more that I wasn’t.”

“Yeah, I know. You were good at your job, you told me,” Steve says, and Bucky is irrationally irritated that his voice is still pitched low and calm, like this is normal fucking pillow talk. “But I think you’re better than that. You could do better, if you wanted.” 

Bucky gives a bitter huff. “Think Quantico is accepting many convicted felons these days?”

Steve shifts his arm a little, making Bucky’s head roll from his shoulder onto his bicep, so that Steve can look down into his face. Bucky glares back up defiant, though he isn’t sure why. It’s just—it’s nice, that Steve thinks that. About him. But it doesn’t matter if once this is done he can’t make a living or—or do anything but what he’s done in the past. And if he felt trapped by that reality before, the thought of it while lying in Steve’s arms, under that serious blue gaze, feels a hell of a lot worse. 

“Maybe not,” Steve says, eyes not leaving Bucky’s. “But you were amazing tonight. The case would’ve broken down right then if you hadn’t been there. Thanks to you we may have a shot at bringing down Alexander Pierce, who’s so bullet proof he’s been doing all of this under the FBI’s nose without so much as a whiff of investigation, ever. And I’m going to make sure my higher ups know who deserves the credit for it.” 

Bucky scoffs a little. “I bet they’ll be sure to get me a medal.” 

Steve’s jaw juts out, his face taking on a mulish expression. “I was thinking something more like getting this arrangement made permanent. Consulting for us.”

Bucky’s annoyance bleeds away. “I—is that even a thing?”

Steve shrugs. “White Collar division brings in serious money for the Bureau. We get a lot of leeway to do things how we want to.” He peers at Bucky, eyebrows knitted. “Do you want it to be a thing?”

“I—I don’t know.” Bucky answers honestly. He’s too surprised to be anything but honest. It’s not a thing he’d ever considered. It’s not a thing he’s sure he’d like, or even be good at. But it is a choice. Which is more than he thought he’d have. 

“You’re wasted out there. And you could be good at this.” Steve says, softly. “Just think about it.” 

Bucky nods, beginning to turn the idea over in his mind—but slowly, afraid to look too closely for it for fear that it will vanish on inspection. “I will,” he says. 

“Good.” 

The last word is just a whisper, almost lost as Steve leans in to kiss Bucky, tender and slow and lingering. It’s a kiss that isn’t meant to rush toward anything else, meant to be savored just for what it is without expectation. Bucky slips a hand up to cradle Steve’s jaw, thumb stroking the hard line of it as Steve tips them both back into the pillows. 

For the moment, everything else turns into white noise, all of it pushed to the background in favor of Steve’s mouth and hands and body, twining around him in the darkness. 

*

Steve wakes slowly to the light streaming into his eyes from the open curtains, which is a pleasant change of pace from the normal rush of consciousness that usually jolts him awake. He stretches his limbs out and lets his eyes open to the light at their own speed, only cracking them blearily when he reaches out and finds the other half of the bed already vacant. 

He frowns slightly, propping himself up on an elbow. Bucky is decidedly not a morning person, something Steve would strongly attest to even after just a few days of sharing space in the apartment, so he’s surprised to find him up and out of bed before Steve. 

He doesn’t have to wonder for long; once he gets his bearings he spots a note propped up on the nightstand in Bucky’s lazy but fluid scrawl. It reads: _You deserve the finest bagels in the land for last night, back soon to provide xoxo._

Steve smiles and swings his legs to the floor, stretching out his neck and shoulders as he gets fully vertical. 

He throws on a clean pair of boxers and an undershirt, and hums to himself as he puts on a fresh pot of coffee—he figures even if Bucky picked some up for himself while he’s out, there’s almost no doubt he’ll go for another cup at some point this morning. He’s too much of a caffeine addict to really be satisfied with one. 

A dopey smile creeps over his face as he stands at the kitchen counter, taking in the little fragments of mess that have comprised their time together, now scattered across the apartment like a visual narrative: the sketchbook and pencils and empty canvases piled on the coffee table, the dishes from their dinner in the sink, Bucky’s blow dryer plugged in in the bathroom, Steve’s bed left tidily made and unused beside Bucky’s rumpled one. His eyes land last on his stack of files and notepad and FBI trappings piled on the little bistro table. 

It’s the part he should feel the most guilty over—the fact that all of this has happened in the way it has, on the job. But he…just doesn’t. 

And part of him argues that it’s because it isn’t really _that_ bad. They’re both consenting adults, and Bucky isn’t a source or a criminal informant, he’s a consultant—despite the unconventional arrangement he’s welcome to make his own decisions and is here of his own free will. It’s no worse than getting involved with an coworker from the Bureau—frowned on and discouraged, maybe, but not untenable. 

Honestly though, that’s not really why he can’t feel bad about it. Bucky was only half right, one of the first days they were here, when he called Steve a goody-two-shoes. Doing the right thing is important—possibly the most important thing to Steve. But it’s not the same thing as being a rule follower. Not someone else’s rules, anyway. It’s been helpful, in the past, that the FBI handbook of conduct has always more or less lined up with Steve’s personal standards for how he should or shouldn’t behave. But on the subject of Bucky, Steve is more than open to the fact that he and the code of conduct might be about to go their separate ways. Because every part of him felt better the minute he stopped resisting. 

His happy sense of certainty lingers for several more minutes, through doing the dishes, continuing as he starts to pick up their hastily discarded clothes from the night before. 

Right up to the moment that a creased white business card falls from the pocket of one of the jackets slung over his arm. 

He frowns, picking it up and realizing it’s the one Natasha had handed them with the information about the auction. Steve notes again with a snort how dramatically un-useful and enigmatic it is, considering the front holds exactly two pieces of information: Natasha’s name and a phone number, a small red hourglass embossed below as the only other embellishment. He frowns, trying to remember when he’d put it in his pocket—he thought he’d filed it away with his notes. 

Then Steve flips the card, and realizes that it _isn’t_ the one Natasha gave to him. And that it must have fallen from Bucky’s coat. 

Because it reads, _Call me when you ditch the fed. I’ll be looking to expand once you’ve cleared the competition_.

It takes Steve several seconds to realize that he has been holding his breath, and he draws in a shaky inhale feeling like fish on a pier. 

Natasha had known? About him? Did Bucky—had Bucky told her? 

Steve doesn’t know when he would have had the chance. But if Bucky hadn’t told her, then why hadn’t he told Steve when he realized that their cover was blown? And Natasha…she had still helped them. Peering down at the card again, as if he could have misread it, he supposes that part at least makes sense. It’s a good angle to get around someone like her, if Bucky hadn’t suggested the cover they went with instead. Perhaps, if they had strategized together, convincing her to help the FBI for her own gain might have been a tactic they would have considered. If Steve hadn’t been in the dark—if Bucky—if he’d been working openly with Steve. 

Steve drops onto the couch, scrambling mentally for an explanation that gives Bucky the benefit of the doubt here. For an explanation that lets Bucky not have betrayed him, gone behind his back to play both sides of this game. For an explanation that doesn’t break his heart.

Nothing is broken yet that can’t be repaired, with the right explanation. 

But he can’t think of one. 

Still this was before…before a lot of things. It doesn’t mean—does it mean that Bucky has had his escape hatch arranged all this time? Steve put the case, his career, his _life_ in Bucky’s hands and he’d thought…he’d thought they had figured out how to work well together. But if the trust only went one way…well it leaves him a fool. A fool who absolutely should have known better. Wanting someone to be different from who they are isn’t a good enough reason to stake your life on it. 

Steve shakes his head vehemently at that final thought. This card and the fact that Bucky kept it to himself could mean a lot of things. But Steve _didn’t_ imagine Bucky’s real anguish over what Pierce tried to involve him in, or the confused hope in his eyes when Steve offered him an alternative to returning to his old life. He knows what Bucky did in the past but…but he also knows Bucky. Doesn’t he?

There is a war happening inside Steve’s chest as he sits with his head bent over the little card. On the one side is the self-protective reflex to curl in on himself, to halt the impending hurt before it can spread by shutting down the part of him that’s already infected, cutting Bucky from his heart like a gangrenous limb. On the other is the half telling him that he’s the worst kind of coward if he does that, if he doesn’t find out first if fighting this out is worth it before he cuts and runs. The kind of coward Bucky accused him of being yesterday—god was it really only a day ago?—crushed under the weight of so many _shoulds_ that he can’t see any more what _is_. 

Of course, the ruthless voice argues, Bucky was the one who said it, and maybe he knew exactly how Steve would react. Maybe he’s a con artist who knows intimately how to get people to do what he wants. 

But what benefit would Bucky get from this? From making Steve care about him? 

Hah, the voice persists, how about a ticket out of prison, the cover of a position with the federal government, and a clear path to making his old employer very happy to see him again? 

No. Steve was going to do all of those things anyway. All Bucky had to do was be good at the job, help him solve this case and prove his worth. Making Steve care doesn’t add anything for him. 

Unless he just enjoys it. _Maybe you just don’t really know him at all_. 

His anguished internal debate is interrupted by the sound of the key in the front door—the return of the man in question. Steve’s heart soars and plummets in back to back moments at the noise, a painful change in elevation in response to someone whose fist he now realizes is firmly wrapped around his heart—a simple fact that can’t be changed whether Bucky has satisfactory answers about Natasha or not. Steve sucks in a deep breath, bracing as if to take a punch. 

Then he pushes all of it away, and tries to let his face melt back into something neutral before the handle of the door turns to let Bucky inside. He can’t confront him. Not like this, not yet. He needs more time, needs to think. 

He slips the card back into the pocket of Bucky’s tux, and drapes both jackets over the back of the couch. 

Bucky’s face is already lit up as he enters the apartment, the grin on his face ratcheting up a couple of notches when he sees Steve. _And that’s real, isn’t it?_ Steve pleads with himself, trying his best to smile back. 

“Morning!” Bucky calls cheerfully, “Bagels! The best in the land as promised.” He moves into the kitchen, setting down the brown bags he’s carrying. “I didn’t know whether you were more of a sweet or a savory guy for breakfast so I went with a little bit of both, but if either one of us is going for one with onions I feel like we both have to—hey! Coffee!”

He spins to Steve, still beaming, “I could get used to this fresh coffee just appearing for me thing. Especially with you attached.” 

Steve’s heart does another painful backflip, like a gymnast perfectly able to throw itself in the air but unwilling to stick the landing. It crashes to the floor of his ribcage. 

Bucky comes over to stand in front of Steve, leaning in with a hand on his neck to kiss him. Steve swallows hard, even as his hands come up automatically to cup Bucky’s still smiling face. He kisses him back, intent, like it might answer all of his questions. 

In fact, he clings to Bucky like a drowning man, and the kiss grows more desperate. Steve doesn’t want to break away now that he’s here, to have to look again at what he’s doing, what he’s done, and wonder if all it amounts to is breaking his own heart. Bucky makes a small noise of surprise at Steve’s intensity, but leans into it anyway, kneeling forward to straddle his thighs on the couch, giving back as good as he gets. For a few fevered moments the world narrows again to Bucky’s mouth moving against his, their limbs tangled up together, the taste of him and immediacy of his weight in Steve’s lap. 

_This is real_ , he thinks, _and this and this and this. It has to be._

Steve finally breaks away, leaning his forehead to Bucky’s with his eyes closed tight. He doesn’t want to know if he’s wrong about all of this, about Bucky—not yet. 

“Wow,” Bucky says, a little raggedly. “That’s some hello.” 

Steve chuckles weakly. “Yeah I—just was sorry you weren’t there when I woke up is all.” 

It’s true. He wishes Bucky hadn’t left—that he hadn’t picked up the jacket and found the card, that he wasn’t now unmoored when an hour ago everything had been right with the world. 

Bucky must sense something in the undercurrent, because he pulls back with a small moue of concern on his face. His face is expressive naturally, but it seems to Steve that it has a new level of openness to it, like he isn’t bothering to hide whatever thoughts are crossing there. _See_ , his brain nudges him, _that’s real too_. 

“Everything okay?” Bucky asks. 

Steve gins up his best answering smile. “Yeah, yeah just—you know, tired. Big night.”

Bucky’s face clears a little, though Steve notices not all the way, and he laughs lightly, climbing out of Steve’s lap and running a fond hand through his still messy bedhead. 

“Yeah guess it was. Well—there’s bagels for sustenance when you’re ready. What do we have to do today? To prepare for the meeting I mean?”

“I’m…I’m not sure.” 

Steve hedges, thrown reeling again by Bucky’s enthusiasm. Surely he wouldn’t be so interested if he weren’t…well, truly interested? Unless he just wants to make sure things go well so that his options are open with Natasha. He wishes he didn’t immediately have to consider the latter. 

“I think I need to go check in at the Bureau, talk with Phillips, get a strike team approved and all that.” He says eventually, while Bucky fiddles around in the kitchen with the food. 

“Oh, yeah makes sense,” he says, occupied with slathering cream cheese on half of his bagel. “Should I go with you for that?”

Steve considers the question, wondering if there’s anything underneath it or if he should take it at face value. Then a thought occurs to him. 

“Ah—no, I’d better just go in on my own.” He keeps his voice very even. “You okay to hang here alone for a couple hours?”

Bucky shrugs, “Sure thing. I’ll entertain myself somehow.” 

“Great,” Steve says, wondering if he’s making a good call, or if he should just address this head on. 

Bucky looks up, his mouth quirked in a half smile. “Can’t say I won’t miss ya though. Kinda gotten used to having you around.” 

Steve says nothing, and flees soon after to the shower. 

 

It’s not a plan, not really. And Steve does actually need to go to the field office to report in and make arrangements for how to deal with Pierce. 

But it’s not hard, once he’s left the apartment with an absentminded kiss on the cheek from Bucky which still burns his skin, not to start walking toward the subway right away. To instead tuck himself into the mouth of the alleyway across from their building. Just for ten minutes, he thinks. Just to be sure. 

He barely has to wait five. 

His heart slams against his chest when Bucky emerges from the front door, no longer in his comfortable casual clothes but once again wearing something more elegant, dark colors and a tailored fit. Steve follows him without thinking closely about what he’s doing. 

He only has to see Bucky board the subway headed toward the shipyards to be sure of where he’s going. Steve watches the doors close behind him and stands still in the stream of people moving around him on and off of their trains. 

Then he forces himself to walk back up the stairs, back down the street. He has a job to do. 

He wonders if Bucky will be back at the apartment when he returns. 

He wonders if he’ll see him again at all.


	12. Twelve

Bucky lets himself into the warehouse floor quietly. There’s no Dum Dum at his desk today, and without his booming voice and big presence the space seems much emptier. Falsworth sees him and only waves him on his way with typical disinterest. 

Natasha is lounging catlike on one of her art deco sofas reading a book, making it look much more comfortable than Bucky would generally assume antique furniture should be. She’s dressed in a simple pair of cropped black pants and a black turtleneck, looking like Audrey Hepburn—if Audrey Hepburn knew several ways to kill you with her bare hands. 

“No boyfriend in tow today?” she purrs by way of greeting, dropping the book to the table beside her and sitting up in a languid motion. 

Bucky makes a face at her. “You know that was kind of rude of you, I’ve had to keep that whole cover up ever since we saw you—since Steve doesn’t know any better.” 

Natasha laughs, a smoky sound. “I’m sure that’s been a real hardship James, honestly. How you must have resented it.” 

Bucky sighs, flinging himself into the stiff club chair beside her and kicking his heels up onto the coffee table. She gives him a _look_ until he puts them back onto the floor with a huff. 

“Why do I have the feeling you aren’t here to tell me the job is done and my prodigal son is returning to run my new foray into art forgery?” she asks, with a raise of an eyebrow. 

Bucky gives her a _look_ , and though he isn’t as good at them as Natasha is, she eventually sighs, sinking back onto the couch with a slight pout. 

“That’s what I thought.” 

“I—” Bucky hesitates for a minute, not sure how to begin. It’s odd, he knows, that he’d come to Natasha like this. But everything else aside, she knows him better than anyone. And she’s been a good friend to him when he needed it most. “I don’t know what I’m doing Nat.” 

Natasha eyes him, and he can see the wheels in her brain turning, though he isn’t sure what all she’s weighing. “You like him. Your fed.” She says it without any hint of a question. 

“Ye-eah,” Bucky drawls. “I really do. But it’s not—it’s not just that, I—don’t want to come back. Not if I don’t have to. I’m tired. I’m really tired of all of it. I’m sorry.” 

Natasha lets out another long, considering exhale. Then her impassive mask melts away, and she looks at him with something like genuine sympathy and concern. 

“Oh bratishka,” she says, and Bucky thinks once again how the diminutive should be silly or condescending since he’s roughly the same age as her, and yet how he’s never managed to mind. “I always knew I’d be losing you someday. I’m not surprised—it’s a good thing. You weren’t meant to do this forever.” 

Bucky meets her green eyes, into which she has allowed an uncharacteristic amount of feeling to creep, and feels a little tight in the throat. He swallows. 

“Yeah?”

Natasha nods and gives a small laugh. “James when I found you you were chock full of Russian poetry. You were running a con you didn’t even realize was a con just because you wanted to go to Europe so bad you’d finally figured out you could get money from a miser if you turned those moon eyes on bright enough. Just because you’re good at it doesn’t mean I ever thought it would stick.” She taps his knee playfully with one slender hand. “I just figured I’d make the most of you while I had the opportunity.”

He smiles a little in return at the memory. It’s a good one, regardless of whatever else happened after. He remembers the glamor and danger and promise in what Natasha had offered him, the ease with which she wielded herself that had convinced him to follow her anywhere, convinced him he could do anything if she showed him how. And he had. So many, many things. 

He scrubs a hand over his face, stopping that train of thought in its tracks. 

“But what if…what if I’m _not_ good for anything else anymore? How am I supposed to just—just start over?”

“Is that what Steve says?” she asks, coolly. 

“No,” Bucky admits. “He thinks…he wants me to work for the feds. Doing…doing this I guess. But I—I don’t know if I can be that person.” 

“James.” Her tone turns stern, her eyes narrowing. “There’s no such thing as destiny, or fate or any of that. You want a different life, you make it.” She pauses, and he waits for the rest. “People like you and me…we don’t just live one life. We live as many as we can think to want. So go work for the feds, or go teach Russian poetry, or whatever it is. Because I think this life is just ending for you. Maybe it ended the minute that jury called you guilty, I don’t know.” 

Bucky clears his throat, turning over what she’s said. Taking in her lithe grace, her enigmatic face, he wonders what other lives she led before the one where they met. But he knows she’d never tell him—the almost confession in what she’s just said is already more personal than she ever gives away as it is. 

He also thinks about how similar it is to the advice he himself gave Steve—in the apartment, a handful of days and possibly a lifetime ago. It had seemed like good advice at the time too, so easy and clear to see in someone else’s life—urging him not to confuse what is for what must be. He appreciates now how much easier it is to say it than believe it when it comes to his own shit. 

But maybe…maybe that’s the key to the intensity that has been swirling around him and Steve, something he’s never felt in a relationship before, much less one only a little over a week old. The fact that Steve sees him and doesn’t just see what is but what could be, and that he’s done the same for Steve…it’s intoxicating. It feels courageously hopeful and precious and rare. 

“You want to work for the FBI?” Natasha asks, watching his face closely. 

Bucky takes a deep breath. “I—yeah. I think so.” 

She smiles. “Then do it, idiot.” 

Then she does something truly shocking, standing up and pulling Bucky to his feet into a tight hug. He’s too startled at first to hug back, but eventually finds his footing again and wraps his arms around her shoulders. 

When she pulls back she has a sly smirk on, and she gives him a sharp pinch to his arm, drawing a little involuntary yelp. 

“What the hell!”

“You’re gonna do it. And you’re going to be good at it, or else you’ll do something else.” She says, in a tone that brooks no nonsense. “But James?”

“Yeah?”

“Just know that if you ever have any thoughts about coming after me, I keep my paperwork in _very_ good order—you won’t find anything you can use, and I’ll make your life a living misery for as long as you try. Probably for a while after, too, for ingratitude.”

Bucky ducks his head, grinning, and squeezes her shoulder one more time before letting go. 

“Love you too, Nat.”

*

Bucky walks home—no, he needs to stop thinking of the apartment like that, since they’ll be vacating it in a day or two—feeling light. 

It’s not like he needed Nat’s permission to do anything—but having her blessing and vote of confidence in him has done what it always has, giving him the push he needs to plunge ahead into unknown territory with self-assurance. 

But from the moment he enters the apartment, he knows that something is wrong. 

He wouldn’t have been able to articulate it, exactly. Nothing is changed. Maybe it’s his thief’s training, his instinctual ability to read a room and sense something amiss before his eyes or other senses can produce the evidence to confirm it. 

His gaze finds Steve at once. He’s hunched over the little bistro table with his head in his hands. At the sound of Bucky entering he looks up, and Bucky could swear that his eyes are red-rimmed, deep lines carving the sides of his mouth. His expression is something between surprise and relief, but his features settle quickly into something slightly more stoic that Bucky can’t read. 

Bucky doesn’t bother shrugging out of his coat or taking off his shoes, going straight to Steve with his brow furrowed in worry. 

“Everything okay? You look—did something happen at the Bureau?” he reaches out to touch Steve’s cheek, and Steve flinches away from the contact, only settling the sick feeling of dread growing in Bucky’s stomach. 

Steve shakes his head, eyes fixed on Bucky. “I didn’t think you’d be back.” He says, and his voice is terrible—flat and hoarse. 

“I—what?” Bucky asks, confused. “I just stepped out a little while after you left…?”

“I know.” Steve says. He gives Bucky a long stare. Then he pushes something small and white across the surface of the little table. 

It’s Natasha’s business card. 

The look on Steve’s face and his initial statement clicks into place. Bucky’s mouth goes instantly dry. 

“Steve,” Bucky starts, slowly, trying to force down the rising tide of panic in his chest, “this isn’t what you—”

“Isn’t what I think?” Steve cuts in, “How about I tell you what I think, before you decide.” 

Bucky doesn’t say anything, and Steve swallows and shuts his eyes, “I think—I think that you’ve been keeping your options open, and that I’m a naïve fucking fool for not realizing that you would.” 

Bucky’s heart trips at the tense, painful note in Steve’s voice, but he also can’t help the little flare of anger he feels at the accusation. 

“My _options_?” he asks, unable to keep his temper out of the question. “And what _exactly_ do you think those were, Steve? At least before yesterday? You think that a week out of prison I have the luxury of a lot of them? If you think that’s the case, I don’t know—maybe you are fucking naïve.”

Steve blanches, then quickly reddens, his own answering flare of resentment rising to stain his cheeks. “So was Natasha happy with you at least? Got your pat on the head like a good little soldier?”

“What do you—?”

“—I know you went to see her today.” Steve stops Bucky with a sharp gesture. “So at least please don’t lie to me about that, I can’t—I can’t hear it.” 

“I wasn’t going to lie— _fuck_ —yes, I went to see her. She’s my _friend_ , I needed to fucking talk to somebody about all this shit okay?”

“People like her don’t have friends Bucky, they have—”

“—People like her? People like _me_ you mean. But you don’t get to decide that, I needed someone.”

“So you chose _her_? Of all the people—” Steve’s face is incredulous. 

Bucky flushes, defensive. “You don’t know her, Steve—you don’t get to—she’s a good person. She may not play by your straight-edge holier-than-thou rulebook—”

“My rulebook—that would be federal and state law?” 

Bucky ignores the comment, raising his voice to continue, “but she’s decent, and she’s known me a long time. A hell of a lot longer than you. This may surprise you but I don’t have a lot of those people left in my life anymore, I don’t get to be like you and cut them out the second they—”

“The second they recruit you into a life of crime that lands you in jail? Yeah I guess you’re right, what’s a little thing like that between friends.” 

Bucky reels back a little, stunned at Steve’s acidity. And Steve seems to know he’s gone too far. He looks away from Bucky, shoulders slumping. 

“She—she helped us,” Bucky says. “She gave us exactly what we needed to break this case. She didn’t have to do that.” 

Steve meets Bucky’s eyes again, and heaves a deep breath. “So are you saying you did tell her? You were the one that warned her we were coming?”

Bucky inhales sharply through his nose, the unexpected suspicion stinging like a slap. 

“Are you serious? Is that really what you think?”

Steve’s eyebrows are drawn together as if in pain. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to think, Buck.” 

The nickname on his lips in this moment hurts more than anything else, and Bucky suddenly has to blink very rapidly to keep a swell of tears from spilling. He manages not to let any fall, though his eyes are bleary. 

“I thought…I thought you—trusted me.” The admission sounds frail as he says it. Bringing it out into the light seems to show all of the cracks in it, the inherent fragility of believing such a thing when their circumstances are what they are. 

Steve clenches his jaw tight. “But you didn’t trust me.” 

“No! That’s not—” Bucky runs his hand through his hair, agitated and floundering, “I just thought—it didn’t matter, since she gave us what we needed. And I figured telling you would just complicate things, and it wasn’t important! I didn’t want you to think—what you think now, I guess.” 

“So you figured a better way to make sure I kept trusting you was to lie to me? Do you understand how that sounds?”

Unfortunately, he does. But it doesn’t matter—what’s done is done, even if he wishes now that he could take it back. 

“That’s it then? One strike and I’m out again?” his voice creaks a little, and he clears his throat forcefully. 

Steve gives a sad little shake of his head. “I just wish—” his throat seems to catch for a moment, “You’ve seen part of me I haven’t shown anyone in a long time. I guess I wish that had gone both ways.” 

Something inside Bucky rips down the middle at that, and he loses the battle with his tears, two of them tipping over the edge to slip down his cheeks. He brushes them away as quickly as he can, but Steve looks away from him again, unable or unwilling to watch him. 

It isn’t true. Steve’s seen Bucky break down, seen his uncertainty—and seen his hope, which might have been the most vulnerable thing of all. 

“It did.” Bucky says, biting hard on the inside of his cheek. 

Steve still doesn’t look. “I think—I think it was too much. To have this, and to try to work together in the middle of it. It’s too much.” 

Bucky’s breath hitches at the implications of what Steve is saying, of what he’s trying to take back maybe. “So I guess that’s one of my options off the table then, huh?” his voice is bitter to his own ears. 

Steve jerks back, and his expression is genuinely horrified. “What? No! I wouldn’t—you’ve earned the job if you want it, I wouldn’t take that back just because it shouldn’t be with me! God Buck, I’m not—how could you—”

“Think so little of you?” Bucky asks, harshly. “I’m sorry, Steve. But I might know what that feels like.” 

Steve hangs his head, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “Nothing that happens between you and me changes the fact that you’ve earned a chance. A choice.”

“You just don’t really trust that I’m going to make the right one.” 

Steve takes a shuddering breath. “Tomorrow we get our shot at Pierce, you get to finish what you started. And after that if—if I don’t see you again—I’ll understand.” He pauses. “Do you want me to go somewhere else tonight? Or take the couch?”

Bucky grimaces. “We’re still on the job and still probably being followed. So no, I don’t want you to fuck up our case on top of everything else.” 

He spins, suddenly needing to be far away from this conversation, from Steve’s hurt blue gaze and the tense, set line of his shoulders. He stalks blindly toward the bathroom door, the only piece of privacy in the small apartment, the size of which before had felt protective and intimate but now feels claustrophobic. 

“And there’s two beds for a reason Steve, grow the _fuck_ up.” 

He snaps the last over his shoulder before he slams the bathroom door, not waiting for Steve’s reaction, and locking the flimsy handle and turning his back to it. 

Bucky slides to the floor, and presses his face to his knees. If his eyes now continue to leak into the fabric of his jeans, he doesn’t have to notice or care to stop them. 

 

He sits on the bathroom floor long enough that his tailbone and knees are both stiff and creaky when he finally stands. Long enough that he hasn’t heard any noises from Steve moving around in the rest of the apartment for some time. 

Bucky opens the door gingerly, trying not to let the handle clatter when he releases it. He’s hoping that Steve took him to heart and has _not_ set up shop on the uncomfortable couch like some kind of martyr. He doesn’t deserve to be a martyr—not over this. 

Luckily Steve is not on the couch. Which makes it a lot easier for Bucky to slip out of the front door without too much noise. He hopes Steve is asleep and won’t even notice him missing. But either way, Bucky needs to stretch his legs, needs to breathe air that Steve isn’t also breathing, needs space to think—just for a few minutes. He’ll be back before Steve can get a good lather up about his absence, even if he did hear him leave. Let him worry for an hour if he is awake—that’s his own damn fault. 

Bucky heaves a sigh of relief as his feet hit the pavement outside of their building, crisp night air filling his lungs. It’s late now—he supposes he must have been hiding away longer than he’d realized. 

He shoves his hands in his coat pockets and turns blindly up the street, not really intent on a destination so much as the sidewalk laid out directly in front of him. Steve’s words are still ringing in his ears and reverberating through his hollowed out ribcage. Part of him _does_ want to just take off—not go back to the apartment at all, let Steve finish things on his own since he already thought that’s what he’d do. But the larger part refuses to prove Steve right. Because Steve isn’t right, Steve’s a judgmental dick. 

Of course, a teeny tiny quiet voice in him says, he’s a judgmental dick whose assumptions weren’t totally in the realm of delusion, isn’t he?

It’s almost as difficult to imagine where they could go from here as it is to imagine that things could be over just like that. Any path ahead is hazy, fogged in by circumstance. 

For a moment, Bucky lets himself picture packing up tomorrow, closing the door on the apartment, and never seeing Steve again. Could it be that simple? Could Steve walk away right now with that finality? He feels a lump forming in his throat and imagines maybe running into Steve on the street in Manhattan, Steve pretending not to see him…

His head is so full of that hypothetical street, maybe crowded with other people who bustle through and widen the space between them, that he forgets to pay as much attention as he should to the one in front of him. 

So when a hooked fist snaps out at him from a shadowed doorstep, he doesn’t see it coming. 

The crack to his jaw has his vision bursting with grey stars long enough for the figure who threw the punch to land another two rapid blows to his stomach—a one-two that makes him retch and double over, his brain still scrambling frantically to sort out what’s happening. He balls his hands into fists and raises them, ignoring the pain in his abdomen as best he can while catching his breath, and turning to find his attacker. 

Unfortunately, a swift kick to the back of his knees brings him down with the frightening realization that there’s more than one of them, and that he’s severely outmatched. Bucky’s scrappy and capable, but not against two with the element of surprise on their side. 

He’s on his knees now, and another blow to the gut knocks him all the way to the sidewalk, his self-protective instincts kicking in as he curls his arms and knees up to protect his middle. 

A face appears above him, haloed in warm streetlight. 

It’s an all too familiar one. 

Rumlow points two fingers at Bucky in the shape of a gun. He tips the hand back in a shooting motion, baring his teeth in an ugly grin. 

“Gotcha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry to leave you like this, please forgive me!! But we're in the endgame now, as one might say haha. 
> 
> The fic is fully finished and I DO guarantee a happy ending so hang in there :)


	13. Thirteen

In the darkness, punctuated only by the sound of his own ragged breathing, Bucky is thinking about Tolstoy. 

_Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly._

He’d first picked up _War and Peace_ a lifetime ago, an English translation by Pevear and Volokhnosky that he’d consumed, later making his own painstaking way through it in Russian, his dictionary close at hand. It’s hard to remember that kid who’d been so taken by those words. Especially now. 

Bucky shakes his head infinitesimally, just enough to clear the thought. He doesn’t want to think about himself. He was thinking about Steve. 

Whatever other mistakes Bucky’s made (some of which landed him here), Steve isn’t one. Tolstoy was right. You have to grab happiness and love where you find it—fuck the rest. Nobody’s thinking about what bureaucratic sanctions there are against it when they get to the end. 

Bucky knows. Because he’s pretty sure he’s got a couple of hours at this point, best case scenario. Only as long as it takes for Pierce to get around to dealing with him.

He can’t really feel much about it. In fact, he finds that his brain is incapable of focusing on the thought for more than a moment before shying away. Bucky would force himself to concentrate, only it wouldn’t really make a difference to the outcome if he dwells on it or not. 

So he’d rather dwell on Steve’s smile, the sound of his heart beating loud and warm under the shell of Bucky’s ear, golden head lit with moonlight. It had been a good moment. A moment worth having. 

_My god, a moment of bliss. Isn’t that enough for a whole lifetime?_

That one’s Dostoyevsky, he thinks. Damn Barnes! Still got it. 

He giggles, then immediately hisses in pain as the expression jars his painfully split lip. But the sudden inflation of his lungs pushes against what he is decently sure is at least two broken ribs. He stills himself forcibly, trying to halt the chain reaction of pain cascading through him. 

Fuck. He might be in a little bit of shock here. Maybe he _should_ make himself focus up—stop actively dissociating by reciting Russian authors and picturing Steve’s o-face and try again to determine if there’s any way out of this besides a shot to the back of the head next to the Hudson. 

Bucky makes it to his knees and then to his feet with agonizing slowness, one arm curled around his ribs. He’s grateful at least that they seem to be only fractured, nothing poking inward as far as he can tell. It’s enough though. Rumlow and the other thug had been fairly enthusiastic in their efforts—still sore about how things had gone down in the basement of Zola’s. Though to be fair, it had been Steve who had dropped him with humiliating ease, not Bucky.

Once they’d downed him on the street, they’d zip-tied his wrists and bundled him quickly into the back of a black sedan. Bucky thinks if he’d been paying more attention he’d probably have seen it circling before then, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. 

He hadn’t been at all surprised as he’d sprawled into the seat to find himself facing Sitwell, a satisfied snarl on his face. 

“Welcome back, Barnes,” he’d said, chilling Bucky with the use of his name. “You know, I got to thinking about your face after our run in. Thinking about how it was familiar. Imagine my surprise when I realized why—you really must be as stupid as you look.” 

“Go to hell,” Bucky had choked out. 

Sitwell’s lip curled even further. “Mr. Pierce is looking forward to reconnecting. I wonder how that’s going to go for you?”

They’d brought him straight to Pierce’s house, which was when Bucky knew for certain he wasn’t going to be walking away this time, if he’d doubted it at all up to that moment. 

He’d found himself shoved into a small room, maybe something that was once built for storage, though knowing what he does about Pierce Bucky assumes that he probably mostly just uses it for this. Rumlow had gotten in a couple more hits for good measure before slamming the door, lights off, and leaving Bucky in a panting heap in the pitch dark. 

The first thing he’d done was snap the zip-tie around his wrists—but he figures they knew he’d do that, otherwise they would have taken the time to find actual cuffs for him. Maybe Rumlow had enjoyed knowing he would do it, but that it would be as painful as it was pointless. Still it wasn’t like he could just lie here with them on, strapped behind his back. 

Bucky moves around the blank walls of the closet in shuffling, stilted steps. He’s resigned when he confirms the conclusion that it’s airtight. The only way out of here is when someone with the key opens the door—Sitwell or Rumlow or even Pierce. None of the options look good for him. 

He wonders if Steve has realized he’s gone yet. Of course, even when he has he’ll have every reason to assume it was of his own volition, and that he doesn’t want to be found. Their operation to wrap Pierce up for the art thefts and forgeries is ruined now, but hopefully in the coming days or weeks, Steve will run him down. Now that he knows about Pierce, Steve isn’t the type to give up on getting him for something. Eventually, he’ll find something and make it stick. It’s a small consolation, knowing that what landed him here will probably also lead to Pierce finally getting what he deserves, even if Bucky doesn’t get to see it happen. 

One would think that about now he’d be able to remember something pithy and Russian about the inevitability of death. Honestly considering all the things his old buddies, his _druz’ya_ , wrote it seems like there’d be more pertinent quotes about getting dropped into the river than about love. Pessimism in the face of mortality and all that. But for some damn reason nothing comes to mind—Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, and Pushkin all deserting him to wait out his fate alone. 

Bucky slumps again to the wall, sliding down it with as much care as he can, suppressing a groan of pain. 

His efforts have set his ribcage on fire, and he can feel his pulse throbbing in his swollen right eye. He does his best to breathe shallowly in deference to his ribs, but even though he’s in total darkness he can tell that his vision is starting to flicker. 

There doesn’t seem to be a reason to fight it. So he lies down on his good side and closes his eyes, letting the grey that’s swirling around him close in.

 

It’s impossible to guess how long he drifts half in and half out of consciousness with no light to judge by. 

Bucky only wakes again fully when the door to the small space is thrown open, the light from the hall beyond searing and harsh to his disoriented eyes. His mouth is dry and sticky with thirst, and his stomach burns hollowly. It makes him think that it has been a few hours at least that he’s been here. He tries to think what that means, to remember where he was supposed to be right now—but the thoughts slip and flicker away from him like a scattering school of fish, he can’t seem to wrap his mind around any of them. His head aches around his swollen eye, and his cheeks are hot and feverish. 

He’s pulled roughly up from the floor by Rumlow and a different lackey, too exhausted and out of it to care this time about the whimper of pain that escapes him as they jostle his aching bones. His pride, which he’d considered the one thing of value he possessed last night feels worthless in the light of today. 

Dimly, Bucky had expected to be taken to some sort of back room—something dingy and windowless, a dungeon for Pierce’s dark deeds. Instead, he finds himself deposited in a well-appointed, brightly lit office somewhere on the third story of Pierce’s mansion. It’s a tasteful space—dark wood furniture and leather, a massive Persian rug under his feet, classical oil paintings of hunting scenes on the walls, even a picture of Pierce shaking hands with the governor displayed on a shelf. 

This isn’t somewhere reserved for Pierce’s non-public dealings, somewhere designed for secrecy. This is his real office, the one where he meets with the well-to-do of New York society, with politicians, brings friends. 

Bucky is surprised. He would have expected Pierce to be the type to separate his public and private work. Maybe he’s just that arrogant and untouchable that he doesn’t have to. He can entertain a thief he intends to kill in the same chair he’ll later serve coffee to the mayor in. Or maybe it’s just special treatment for Bucky, for reasons he can’t fathom. 

Rumlow pushes him into a sleek chair, snapping out two fresh zip-ties to lock Bucky’s wrists to the arms. Another two bind his ankles to the legs. Then he’s alone again. Besides the restraints, it looks like he might just be anybody else here for a meeting with Alexander Pierce as he sits waiting in front of the man’s tidy, shiny desk. Bucky huffs a little at the effort, letting his head loll. He feels like it should be pretty obvious he doesn’t have a lot of fight or ingenuity in him at this point, but hell maybe Rumlow’s right—who knows what last ditch survival strength might kick in when he least expects it? He wishes it would hurry up if it’s going to happen, at the very least to help his struggling brain concentrate. 

Bucky snaps from an intent study of the pattern and texture of the carpet when he hears the familiar voice moving into the room. He doesn’t manage to fully suppress the shudder that passes through him at Pierce’s calm tone, even though it jars him. 

“Why don’t you go and get yourself lunch, Renata?” he’s saying as he enters, “I’m going to be tied up for oh—say the next hour and a half. You might as well make it a long one.” 

Lunchtime—he must have managed to pass out for the remainder of the night while he was locked up. 

“Very good Mr. Pierce,” says a woman’s voice from outside the door. “Call me if you need anything.” 

“Thank you Renata, I’ll be sure to do that.” 

Bucky can hear the kindly smile that he knows is on Pierce’s face—the one he wears for people who don’t know any better. Who only know him as the competent and benevolent boss, businessman, philanthropist, and whatever else it strikes his fancy to dabble in that’s acceptable for public consumption. 

Pierce doesn’t acknowledge Bucky, even as he moves around where he’s seated to the other side of his desk and picks up the phone, punching in a couple of numbers. 

“Yeah, come on up,” he says without greetings, hanging the phone back in its cradle. 

Pierce seats himself in his tall brown leather chair, picking up a stack of papers from the top of his desk and perusing them idly. He still doesn’t look at Bucky, and Bucky wonders whether he somehow has convinced Pierce he’s worth the power play and dramatics or if Pierce is genuinely disinterested in him and busy with other things for the moment. 

He glances up at the sound of footsteps in the outer office. “Shut the door,” he directs whoever it is. 

“Sit down Jasper, I don’t need you at the moment. Rumlow—join us.” 

Bucky hears Sitwell move off to his left, taking a seat on the couch positioned below one of the tall windows. He wonders if Sitwell is in the doghouse because of him and Steve, or if Pierce is just always this dismissive of him. He guesses it’s a mix. Rumlow moves up behind him, and Bucky can feel his body heat as he stands with his hands on the back of Bucky’s chair. It makes Bucky’s skin crawl feeling him there and unable to see him, but he refuses to crane his neck around to look at him. 

Pierce comes around the front of his desk, and sits back against it, one leg propped up on the other chair, looking flawlessly casual as he finally directs his gaze toward Bucky. Bucky wonders distantly whether Pierce’s hair is real. He isn’t really sure how old the man is, but he certainly isn’t young. Maybe that’s just one of the many benefits of wealth—retaining a full head of hair despite the odds.

Bucky blinks several times, trying to banish the thought. _Doesn’t matter, Barnes_ , he tells himself grimly. 

Pierce’s mouth is quirked in a knowing smile, his eyes fixed on Bucky’s face as he fights to pull his attention where it’s supposed to be. 

“Welcome back Barnes,” he says, pleasantly. “Jasper over here was surprised to see you—have to say I wasn’t.” 

“Yeah?” Bucky says, trying to sound belligerent but coming up short somewhere around sullen. 

Pierce smiles and nods, smoothing a hand over his tie. 

“Mmm. You’re stubborn. It’s not a bad quality—I would’ve liked having you work for me. Guess I’ll settle for killing you instead.” 

“Get—get fucked,” Bucky manages to rasp. 

Pierce chuckles lightly, looking down at his loosely clasped hands. Then before Bucky can even anticipate the motion, he leans forward and strikes the back of his hand with brutal force across Bucky’s face, sending sparks of pain skittering through him. Bucky gasps, tasting coppery blood in his mouth as his split lip reopens, deepens from the fresh impact, and he can feel where Pierce’s ring cut his cheek. He’s left panting, eyes screwed shut, but the pain does sharpen his awareness and remind him of who he’s dealing with in Alexander Pierce. 

“Manners, Barnes. That’s what you’re missing. No sense of your place.” Pierce’s voice is mild, almost teacherly, a counterpoint to the anger and force behind the blow. 

“So get on with it,” Bucky gasps, clinging to the last of his bravado. He’s not sure what Pierce still wants from him—possibly just to play with him a little first, in which case angering him enough to move quicker than he intends seems to be his best option. 

Pierce doesn’t rise to the bait. 

“I wonder if you explained to your boyfriend whose nose you were asking him to tweak? Did he know you were handing him a death sentence, or did you keep that to yourself? Not very sporting of you—but I suppose all’s fair in love and war. Too bad for him though.”

It takes a moment for this to filter in through the haze of pain clouding Bucky’s mind. His…boyfriend? Steve? But that isn’t—does Pierce not—?

“Wh-what are you going to do with him?” Bucky asks, allowing himself to stutter over the words. 

“I haven’t decided yet. But I think I’ll keep our meeting, since he seems to be keeping himself tucked up safe in your apartment until then. Might be more fun that way, I want to hear his pitch before I tell him you’re dead.” 

The meeting…then Pierce doesn’t know. He doesn’t know Steve’s FBI, that this whole thing was a set-up. Hope swells in Bucky’s chest, painful against his sternum. That means Steve can still bring him down—today even. 

If Pierce thinks that this was just more of Bucky’s ill-advised vendetta against him, odds are he hasn’t even shut his work down or destroyed any of the evidence that will corroborate the findings of their investigation so far. The possibility is incredible, it never even occurred to Bucky that Pierce wouldn’t know—he has friends everywhere, undoubtedly including the FBI. But maybe he was so blinded by thinking he knows Bucky, knows his motives, that he was confident enough not to dig further. Bucky was stupid before, coming after him. Pierce only has to keep assuming that he’s been equally stupid this time for a few more hours, and then he’s done. 

It’s absurd. It’s all going to go exactly like they planned, except the part where Bucky is dead. He hopes Steve doesn’t blame himself for that. 

A bubble of laughter rises unbidden to his lips, weak chuckling that shakes his ribs and stretches the slash in his lip, but he can’t stop. The sound is ragged and hysterical, and he feels his eyes leaking at the inconceivable irony of it. 

Pierce’s cold voice cuts through his laughter, “Brock, knock some sense into him.”

Brock cuffs him across the head from where he stands behind Bucky, sending his ears ringing as he moves around to the front of him to launch a new, calculated assault. By the second hit, Bucky isn’t laughing anymore. 

With the sixth, he feels one of his fractured ribs truly snap, a sharp stabbing pain through his chest. He would have screamed, if the break weren’t keeping him from now taking anything but reedy, superficial breaths in the hope that the bone doesn’t puncture anything important. 

His vision sparks with the insubstantial flow of oxygen, and then dims as his head rolls back. Before he passes out he hears Pierce through the fog. 

“Ease up. I’m not ready for him to be done quite yet.” Pierce sighs, and his voice sounds as if it’s coming to Bucky down a long, long tunnel. “I’m going to take a call. Let me know when he’s back—I want to know more about the other one before we meet.” 

The last thought Bucky has is simply: _Steve_. 

*

There had been a sick feeling that crept up through Steve’s lungs when he rolled over in the first rays of sunlight filtering through the window to see an empty bed. 

By the time he had gotten up and made a cursory glance through the apartment to confirm that Bucky was not in it, it had turned into a stone which sank instead to the pit of his stomach. 

Now, as he forces himself to eat a bowl of oatmeal in preparation for what is still likely to be a long day, he can’t help but think about how unfair it is that he should be able to feel both completely unsurprised and utterly devastated at the same time. It seems like the fact that he half-expected it should have cushioned the blow, leaving him less shattered to find all his fears confirmed. It doesn’t. The human heart is an irrational mechanism, as it turns out. 

He feels Bucky’s absence from the apartment like a toothache—a throbbing, constant pang with a source he can’t quite touch. 

Steve shouldn’t feel this way about it. He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t. He barely even knows Bucky—yesterday had proven that, if anything. And Bucky doesn’t really know him, even if it had felt like he’d somehow managed to crawl inside his veins and take up residence there in the brief span of their time together. 

He wonders where Bucky went. He knows he’s got his own place somewhere—the address is probably in his file, unless he gave them a false one. Or maybe he went back to Natasha’s, since they’re evidently close enough for that kind of thing. (And if that thought has a bitter tang to it, Steve doesn’t pay it much attention). All he does know is that Bucky was angry and hurt enough with him to leave without any of his things, slipping out sometime after Steve had fallen into a fitful sleep in their conspicuously empty room. 

But he shouldn’t be thinking about that either. He needs to let Bucky go. Not only because it was Bucky’s choice to take off without saying anything, and he deserves to make that decision if nothing else, but because Steve almost certainly has dodged a bullet. It’s better this way. If things had kept on between them—who knows when and how it would have come crashing down. Steve’s sure that if he’s heartbroken over him now it could only have been worse to delay the inevitable, to become more tangled up in one another before having to wrench themselves apart. 

Still he can’t help wondering. 

The oatmeal seems to be sticking in a sodden lump in his stomach so he pushes the bowl away still half full, though he knows from experience how bad things can go if he forgets to make himself eat on the day of a big operation. 

He tries to focus on the case, organizing and reorganizing the notes of their investigation so far, but Bucky permeates every page. Eventually he determines there’s not much he can do about it anyway—the strike team is prepped, his gun is clean, his notes are as orderly and comprehensive as he can make them. 

Steve’s eyes are drawn to the small pile of blank canvases stacked neatly on the coffee table with the rest of the supplies from his painting endeavors. His fingers tap restlessly on the kitchen counter, and he mentally discards the idea of another cup of coffee. His brain is too buzzy as it is. 

He heaves a deep sigh, and then shrugs. He guesses he may as well keep himself occupied somehow. 

There’s an unaccountably nervous flutter to his heart as he sets up one of the blank canvases on the easel, and adds fresh paint to the palette. He thinks of his mom—the pleased smile she’d always give him when she found him working. It had never gone away, in all the years. She’d given him the same encouraging expression the very first time they’d gone out and bought a real, stretched canvas for him to try at the age of nine as she had ten years later while he stood anxiously in front of his very first gallery show.

He begins to block in the broad strokes of a face, thinking that maybe a portrait of his mom is an appropriate way to officially start over again with a brush in his hand. 

However, Steve finds himself frustrated as he begins to refine the lines and shapes—they’re too sharp, too squared, and refuse to cooperate or coalesce into anything resembling his mother’s soft, careworn edges. He leans back with an annoyed huff, taking the whole thing in as an overview to see where he’s going wrong. 

Then he slumps a little in defeat on the hard wooden stool. 

Somehow without conscious effort, in fact in total defiance of all his conscious efforts, the face taking shape in front of him is unaccountably Bucky’s. His brush seems to have refused the curves and softness he was looking for in favor of Bucky’s strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, and shadowed eyes. 

He stares at it for a long minute. Then he shrugs. No fighting it, apparently. 

Steve goes back to work, and now that he isn’t resisting he finds Bucky’s features are coming quicker and quicker into focus in front of him. His brushstrokes gain confidence as he adds the dip in Bucky’s chin, his high forehead, his straight nose. He reaches for the colors he needs to shade in Bucky’s full, pouting mouth, his icy blue eyes, his mussed chestnut hair. 

The background he fills quickly with light and undefined strokes behind Bucky’s face, but when he leans back again to look at his progress, he thinks that the white has taken on the slightly rumpled look of bed sheets. 

Steve puts the palette down, bringing a hand to his mouth as he takes in his work. 

It’s messy—frantic and rushed, the lines blurring thanks to the slow drying oil paints which have never been his primary medium. But he knows that’s not where the small, bubbling sense of dissatisfaction in him is from. 

The portrait is vibrant, full of feeling. And none of it is the hurt or anger which Steve would have said is the source of the ache in his chest. He’s painted Bucky as he’d looked lying in bed beside him, vulnerable and sweet before any of the mistrust had entered into things. Steve thinks he shouldn’t have been able to paint him like this—some of the betrayal and disappointment he felt yesterday should have made its way in. 

But it didn’t. If Steve were looking at this as the work of another artist, he’d say that the painter cares for this person. That _he_ cares for Bucky. Maybe could even…no. The thought doesn’t bear codifying. He can’t still feel that for Bucky. He shouldn’t. 

Steve looks at the painting again, the lines of Bucky’s face lovingly rendered, the sleepy half-wistful turn to his mouth. Steve shouldn’t still care for him, not now that he’s gone who knows where, made his choice—but he does. 

He stands abruptly, suddenly needing not to be looking at the canvas any more. 

Gathering up his brushes and palette, he walks them to the kitchen to dump in the sink. He ought to clean them now—any artist worth his salt cares for his tools—but instead he just stands with his hands braced on the counter, head bowed. 

What is he doing? With himself, with his life? How is it that a man he first met in an FBI case file and rap sheet is the person who has him with a brush in his hand for the first time in a decade? 

And with that brush compelled inexorably to be able only to paint that man’s face with the distinct tenderness of a lover. Steve Rogers is a lot of things, but he’s never been stupid. Now he thinks he’s been pretty stupid over Bucky from the minute he walked through the door in his prison jumpsuit. Stupid to get involved with him, stupid to fall for him, stupid to trust him…stupid to let him go. Steve can forgive himself for all the rest. But it’s that last one that he can’t shake. 

He just—is it so wrong just to want to _know_? To be certain where Bucky ran to? He could find out. But it feels like a huge breach of trust—however battered and broken theirs already is—to look for him now when he walked out for good reasons. Steve should let go of him. Steve shouldn’t cling to something that wasn’t ever meant to happen in the first place. 

_Should, shouldn’t—Jesus_. Steve sneers at the words, at himself. Wasn’t Bucky the one who told him he ought to stop thinking so much about “shoulds” and just do what he wants for once? Maybe Bucky will forgive Steve for taking his advice. If not, he can’t be more lost to Steve than he already is, can he?

Maybe it was all one-sided, what Steve had felt for Bucky. But it doesn’t make it any less real for him. He’s allowed to want what he wants. And yes, what he really he wants is for Bucky to have felt the same about him, to not have left him here alone without even a goodbye. But since he can’t do anything about that, he at least wants to know where Bucky is. Even if it changes nothing.

Before he can change his mind, he snatches up his phone from the counter, pulling up his contacts. 

Maria answers on the second ring. “What’s up Rogers?”

Steve bites his cheek, then ploughs ahead, refusing to think too hard about this. “Hey Hill, can you do me a favor?”

“Sure, you okay? Nothing wrong with tonight, right?”

Maria is one of the agents who’s been assigned to the strike team supporting him. Now that everyone has been briefed on the target, the evidence they’ve piled up against Pierce, the Bureau has spared no talent or expense in going after him. Phillips may be a cranky sonofabitch but he isn’t easily intimidated, even by someone as wealthy, connected, or untouchable as Pierce. 

“Um…kind of. I was wondering if you could—set up a trace for me.” 

“Oh,” she says, sounding mildly relieved. He can hear her clacking at her keyboard, pulling up the necessary fields. “Yeah no problem. Who for?”

“Ah—I need you to trace Barnes’ phone.” 

“Oh.” This oh lands much heavier than the previous one, and he can hear the concern creeping into her tone. “Steve…should we be worried about this?”

“No—” Steve hesitates. “But if you could keep it to yourself for now I’d really appreciate it Hill. Maria—please. I don’t want to get Phillips or anybody involved…just yet.”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the line, and Steve worries at his lip, afraid that he’s just pushed the boundaries of their collegial friendship too far. There’s really no reason for her to do it, if she’s worried that he or the operation are compromised. 

“Yeah.” She says at last, softly. “Yeah I can do that. You sure everything is okay? I don’t need to be worried about tonight?”

He sighs in relief. “No—no everything is still set. Just need…” he trails off, unsure of how to finish. 

_Closure_ is the word that comes to mind, but he’s not sure he could explain that. She seems to intuit something closer to the truth than he’s giving her anyway—and _god_ is it that obvious even in his voice?—but lets him be. 

“Alright Rogers. Give me a minute.” 

Steve slumps forward to press his forehead to his arm against the countertop, waiting. I just need to know, then it’s done. He can hear Hill typing again. 

“Uh—Steve?” her voice comes down the line again, still quiet but with a note of alarm in it. 

“Where?” he asks. 

“It looks like he’s—is there any good reason for him to be at Pierce’s residence right now?”

Steve’s head snaps up from his arms, a chill going down his spine. “What?” 

“His phone—the signal is putting him at Pierce’s.” 

“Are you sure?” his voice croaks a little over the question, fear building in the pit of his stomach. 

If Bucky is at Alexander Pierce’s house it’s not of his own choosing. Steve would stake his own life on that. Whatever else Bucky may have lied to him about, he feels with an absolute certainty down to his bones that what he said about Pierce was the truth. If Pierce has him now, there’s no possible good explanation. And Bucky’s already been gone for hours.

“I’m sure,” she says without hesitation. “It’s bad?”

“Get Phillips, get whoever’s there right now and get ready to—I’ll be there in half an hour just—”

“Got it,” Maria cuts in, competent and sure as always even as he feels himself beginning to panic. “Team’ll be ready for you to brief. Get here soon.” 

The line goes dead. Steve doesn’t notice—he’s halfway to the bedroom already struggling out of his pajamas, grabbing up his holster and badge as he goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my loves, as ever, your comments mean the world to me!! i have been itching like crazy to post this chapter after reading everything you said about the last one so keep 'em coming :)


	14. Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the one today friends, because the end is nigh! A million thank you's and kissy face emojis to all of you who have commented and kudoed, I've been like a kid on Christmas every single mon/thurs waiting for your reactions!

It had taken far too long from the time Steve catapulted into the Bureau field office to the point where his team was fully mobilized and approved to move on Pierce’s house. Finding a judge to write a warrant based only on the slim evidence he has at this point had eaten up precious hours. In the end, Steve knows that he sold the urgency not on the basis of Bucky’s safety being threatened, but on the idea that Pierce’s association with him in the middle of the investigation provides the probable cause they need regarding his criminal activities. It chafes at Steve to sell his case that way when he knows it isn’t true—but ultimately if it gets him in the door, if it gets him to Bucky faster, that’s what matters. 

He feels the minutes ticking by like a dripping faucet in a quiet house. He can’t ignore the relentless flow, and it worms its way under his skin, winding him tighter and tighter as everything and everyone around him seems to slow down. By the time the warrant comes through and the strike team is gearing up, Steve feels ready to scream with frustration to try to break the slow-motion spell, like he’s going to rattle apart from the force of his racing heart.

At least a hundred times he thinks about fleeing the building, going just him and his glock to Bucky’s aid. He refuses to really examine the underlying reason he doesn’t—if Bucky is already—well, the least that Steve can hope for is to make sure that Pierce sees justice for it. And if Steve doesn’t do this part by the book he’ll walk free regardless of anything else. But there’s a delicate razor’s edge within him balancing the thought of Pierce getting off scot free with the urgency that _maybe_ if he’s fast enough he won’t be too late for Bucky in the first place. 

It seems that his heightened tension hasn’t gone unnoticed by his colleagues either, and he can’t say that he’s entirely surprised when Director Phillips himself enters the lockers where the rest of the team is getting into tactical gear, strapping down the Velcro on his Kevlar vest. It’s fairly unusual these days for him to personally take part in an operation, and it immediately ratchets up the mood in the room. There’s a mixture of glances from the other agents, some curious, some concerned, flicking from Phillips to Steve. 

Phillips’ eternally sardonic, hound-dog expression doesn’t change, but he says to Steve, loud enough for anyone listening (which is everyone in the room) to hear, “Pierce is a big fish—gonna be press clean up after. I’m assuming you’d rather not have to take point on that part.”

Steve nods, and the other agents palpably relax around him. “Good idea, sir.”

Steve silently thanks Phillips for the support. He needs the team to be confident in him today—his information, his strategy, all of it. He doesn’t like the idea of storming Pierce’s house with a team that thinks he’s about to lose it. 

Phillips angles closer to him, under the guise of situating his holster, and asks, “You still up to leading this Rogers?”

“Yes sir,” Steve says with a little force behind it, drawing himself up, “ready the minute the team is.” 

Phillips looks at him for another several beats, then nods decisively. “Alright then, this is your show. Let’s get our guy.” 

Steve nods vigorously, belatedly realizing that Phillips means Pierce rather than Bucky. Well, he shrugs mentally, the result is the same. He turns to the tac team. 

“Okay, everybody knows their assignment. Let’s roll out!”

 

The only good thing about the delay is that when the transport truck squeals to a halt in front of Pierce’s residence, all Steve has to do is shout “Move!” for a stream of agents to begin pouring into and around the building. Everybody knows what they need to do to lock down the premises, leaving Steve free to make his own dogged way into the house without needing to give any further instruction. 

It’s lucky too that Pierce’s manor is a pre-war building with publicly available building plans, and on top of that has been profiled in several home magazines, so everyone is thoroughly briefed on what they’re walking into and where to go. Steve takes the stairs at a run, on high alert for anyone who might tip Pierce off to their presence. The man hasn’t gotten away with everything he’s done without being smart about his escape routes and backup plans, and Steve doesn’t want to give him the advantage of even a few minutes’ notice. 

Pierce’s office is on the third floor, and Steve enters the hallway from the stairs with five or six other agents following. 

Steve nods to the doors which open into a library and two that should contain smaller private offices for members of Pierce’s staff. “Barton, Carter, clear ’em.”

At the end of the hall is a sleekly furnished seating area, all arranged around the heavy oak door of Pierce’s private office. An older blonde woman stands up from a small reception desk, looking incredulous. 

“What are you—Mr. Pierce is busy!” the woman exclaims, reaching for the intercom on her desk. 

“Ma’am, step back _now_ ,” Steve barks, gun raised. The woman blanches but steps away from the desk and into the waiting hands of one of the other agents. 

Steve takes a deep breath and plunges ahead, glancing back to make sure he still has some backup. Hill gives him a nod, moving to the other side of the door. 

He slams it open with a bang, he and Maria sweeping in and assessing the scene in front of them. 

Alexander Pierce sits behind a large desk, a look of mild curiosity on his face as Steve tells everyone to stop what they’re doing and raise their hands. In front of the desk is somebody slumped in a wooden chair— _Bucky_. He can’t tell—can’t tell his status. 

He swings his weapon to the left while Maria breaks right, and he finds himself face to face with Brock Rumlow, teeth bared and body leaning as if to spring toward Steve, but momentarily frozen in place as he calculates his options. 

Steve trains his gaze on Rumlow, and he can see that his white shirt bears flecks of blood, and his fists as well. “Hands up, Rumlow.” 

In the corner of Steve’s eye he sees Sitwell half rise from a seat on a low sofa, but Hill quickly moves to secure him. 

He watches Rumlow hesitate, eyes sweeping over Steve’s Kevlar vest with FBI printed prominently across the front, flicking behind him toward the stream of other agents moving through the hall. Steve narrows his eyes at him in a challenge, daring him to disobey. Slowly Rumlow raises his hands in surrender. Steve growls and pushes down the urge to shoot the bastard anyway. He settles for striding forward and shoving Rumlow around roughly against a spindly wooden table of curios, manhandling him into cuffs as tight as he can make them. He ignores the man’s grunt of discomfort, eyes now on Pierce. 

Pierce looks back at him with an expression of detached disinterest, hands raised casually, just enough to count. 

“I think there might be some mistake here, agent—”

Steve snarls, rage flaring hot and white in his chest at his gall, the casual arrogance in his unruffled expression. “Mistake? You’re sitting here watching your man beat somebody to death you sick _fuck_ —”

“Alright Rogers, I got it from here,” Phillips calm, drawling monotone cuts him off, coming up behind Steve and moving without hesitation toward Pierce. 

“Barton!” Phillips barks as he goes, “get over here and mirandize.” Clint hustles up at Steve’s elbow and jerks Rumlow from his grasp, where Steve realizes he’s got his hands wrapped white knuckled around his shoulder and one wrist, and moves him off down the hall reciting his rights as he goes. 

“Check on our witness, Rogers,” Phillips directs him, before turning to Pierce with a baleful look. 

The searing, murderous flare recedes and Steve spins, forgetting all about Rumlow and the swarm of activity around him. It’s replaced by a shiver of fear at the broken, ragdoll angle of Bucky’s body—he flies around to the front of him and drops to his knees, groping to find a pulse, his brain filled with a shrieking static—

Before he can find it though, the moment his fingers make contact with Bucky’s burning skin, Bucky’s head rolls to one side and Steve hears him draw a rattling breath. 

His eye—the one that isn’t swollen shut around an ugly mottled bruise—is glassy, and flutters slightly as he tries to focus on Steve. Steve holsters his gun, flipping out his jackknife and slicing through the plastic ties holding Bucky’s arms and legs to the chair, trying to move delicately around whatever injuries Bucky has sustained that aren’t as visible as the ones on his face. In addition to the mess of his eye, he’s sporting a deeply split lip and a cut on his cheek that bleeds sluggishly down over his chin, that whole half of his face puffy and barely recognizable. Steve again feels the urge to turn and start shooting—Pierce, Rumlow, everyone in the fucking building who let this happen. 

Bucky mumbles something, halting his homicidal impulse as he leans in to try to hear better. 

“Steve?” Bucky asks, voice thick and distant. “That you?”

Steve lets out a shaky breath, “Yeah Buck, it’s me, it’s—you’re okay now, we got you—”

“Knew you’d come,” Bucky slurs, and Steve can barely make out the words which only seem to grow fainter, “I didn’t tell him…didn’t…am I…m’I dead?” 

His chin tips down toward his chest, and Steve registers how shallow Bucky’s breathing is, how breathy his voice. Bucky curls an arm around his abdomen and coughs, and alarm bells ring a claxon through Steve’s body as he sees that there’s blood on Bucky’s mouth. _Please god let it be from his lip_ , Steve thinks, panicked. 

“I need EMS up here _now_!” he shouts over Bucky’s head. “Hang in there Buck. Don’t—don’t move okay? We’re gonna get you patched up just—just be okay—”

“Knew you’d come Steve,” Bucky breathes again. Then his good eye is rolling back in his head, and Steve dives forward to keep him from sliding out of the chair, keeping him still against whatever possible injuries he might be harboring internally. 

Steve counts every breath he kneels there, holding Bucky steady by his shoulders—his own heavy and gasping, Bucky’s thin and wheezing. 

Gentle but firm hands grip Steve by the shoulders, moving him up and away from Bucky as the paramedics take over. Steve allows himself to be pushed two steps back, but no further, hovering as the man and woman shift Bucky with sure, careful movements onto a backboard and stretcher, strapping him down securely. The woman cuts through his shirt and bares his chest which is a mass of blue and purple, listening with a stethoscope before saying something low and insistent to the man. 

Steve can only watch helplessly. 

“Alright, let’s get him on the ambulance,” the man says, both of them already moving to either end to raise the gurney.

Steve follows them as they make their quick way out through the office, past the hall full of FBI personnel now photographing and documenting and assessing, and down to the ground floor. He thinks distantly that he should probably be overseeing things, keeping on top of what is supposed to be his investigation, but he can’t break his eyes away from Bucky’s bloodied face. He just wants to hold his hand, be there when he wakes up again—the way Bucky had said his name hits him again like a punch in the gut. _I knew you’d come_. He can’t leave him again. 

But as he moves to follow the stretcher and the EMTs into the street, now lit crazily with red and blue flashing lights, the entire block shut down with police and FBI vehicles, an arm catches him around the chest. 

“You stay, Rogers.” Phillips says, and Steve looks between his boss’ serious face and Bucky’s receding, prone form with confusion. 

“No—no I need to go with him—” Steve protests, trying to break free of the iron band of Phillips’ arm restraining him. 

“And I said no.” Phillips says sternly, moving to stand in front of him, planting his hands on Steve’s shoulders. He gives them a little shake, and Steve looks back at him, his attention sharpening at the subtle and unexpected sympathy in the old man’s heavily lined features. 

“Look,” Phillips says, in a tone that from him might even be called kindly, “we just broke something wide open here that otherwise we might not have had a shot at in years—if ever. I’ve already got eighty kilos of coke and a shitload of unregistered firearms downstairs and we’ve barely even started. I’m not gonna let you fuck that up and you’re gonna thank me later that I don’t. You think Alexander Pierce isn’t going to have the most expensive legal team money can buy to get him off the hook for this? The only way he’s doing the time he deserves is if we do _every. single. thing_. by the book, you got that?” 

Steve draws in a shuddering breath, squeezing his eyes shut tight. He knows Phillips is right, but—

“But I should be there—when he wakes up—”

Phillips’ frown deepens. “Hill!” he yelps, and Maria suddenly materializes at Steve’s side. Phillips turns his droopy glare on her. “Take the ambulance with Barnes to the hospital. That man is our best witness and evidence in this case so you don’t leave his side until you hear from me, got it?”

“Sir!” Maria agrees, spinning to catch up to the paramedics now loading Bucky into the waiting ambulance. 

“That good enough for you?” Phillips asks Steve, gripping his shoulder a little tighter than is comfortable. 

“I—” Steve begins, uncertain of what he’s going to say. The trained, logical corner of his mind knows he’s right, knows even that Bucky would probably not thank him for destroying their case against Pierce in an ill-advised display of emotion. But the animal part of him, the blood pounding in his skull, it all screams the opposite. 

“Good,” Phillips cuts in, his volume edging up slightly, “because if it’s not—if you go anywhere near that hospital before we lock this thing down, you and I are going to have a conversation that you’re not going to enjoy. Got it?”

Steve sags under Phillips’ grasp. “I got it, sir.” 

“Alright. Then get out of here—go home for god’s sake. Get out of the way. You’re useless to me currently. Your friend’s gonna be fine.” 

“Sir, no—please—” Steve protests. He can’t just go _home_. Not with Bucky in uncertain condition, on his way to the hospital in who knows what kind of state. “I need—”

“You _need_ to get out of my hair, Rogers. And you _need_ to stop talking before you say something that I feel obligated to follow up on about what you’ve been messing with the past week—which I very much do _not_ want to do. So shut up.”

Steve draws in a quick, sharp breath at that, faltering under Phillips’ fierce gaze. _Fuck_. Who the fuck else knows? Everybody, it would seem. And with that on the table, he knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on in begging Phillips to let him stay. He’s right—Steve’s compromised, and he can only compromise the rest of the investigation if he doesn’t bow out now. 

“Maria—she needs to take photos, document the injuries—”

Phillips gives an impressive eyeroll. “Rogers, Hill knows her job just as good as you and her head’s on a lot straighter right now, she’ll do what needs doing.” He turns Steve forcibly, and raises two fingers to wave over one of the beat cops forming the barricade in front of the house. 

“Take Agent Rogers home, wouldya?” he asks the cop brusquely, propelling Steve forward. He points a gnarled finger at Steve. “I don’t want to see you ’til Monday Rogers. Stay the fuck away from work. _All of it_.” 

Steve hears the unspoken _James Barnes_ underneath Phillips actual words. All he can do is nod in agreement, and let himself be herded by the cop into his waiting crown vic.

The guy eyes Steve with interest as he pulls away from the flashing lights and swarming bodies surging around the house. 

“Big day buddy? Couldn’t believe when we got the call out to this address.” 

“Yeah,” Steve says dumbly, watching the house in the rearview mirror until they turn the corner. “Yeah big day.” 

“Think you found what you were hoping up there?” 

Steve swallows hard, and shakes his head, hearing the wail of the ambulance moving in the opposite direction. 

“I really don’t know.”


	15. Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> phew, pining pining pining! happy they both have good friends to wade into their mess with them. what do you all think?
> 
> incidentally, i love maria hill until the end of time and i just want her to have the recognition she deserves! 
> 
> second to last chapter here, return thursday for the long awaited and promised conclusion :)

Steve sits on the floor of his bathtub letting the shower spray run rivulets over his numb skin until the water goes cold. When he climbs out and pulls on a pair of pajamas he doesn’t particularly feel any different, but he is an hour closer to—to whenever he can start to make things right than he was when he got home, so it’s something. 

His apartment, having sat empty for the past week, is cool and empty feeling. He fills a pitcher to water his plants, although since it’s been heading into cooler fall weather they don’t need it as badly as he’d expected. Steve’s lost a lot of houseplants thanks to undercover work—he always forgets about them until it’s too late. But he’s glad that they all came through this one alright. Glad something did, anyway. 

There’s nothing in his fridge worth eating, but he isn’t particularly hungry anyway. It’s not like he ever does a lot of cooking, but he usually has at least a few takeout leftovers when he’s been home. Once his body catches up to him he can always break into the handful of frozen meals he keeps for days like this, getting home from work with absolutely no energy even to wait for delivery. 

He’s standing aimlessly peering into his sparse pantry, trying to make himself interested enough in anything he has to actually eat. The only thing in it that remotely appeals is a half a bottle of Jack, but he thinks that he should probably not go down that rabbit hole of bad coping mechanisms, at least not tonight. He’s still hesitating though, tempted, when his debate is interrupted by his phone buzzing on the counter. 

_Maria Hill_ flashes up on the screen, and Steve fumbles trying to swipe open the call. 

“Rogers,” he answers with a bit of a gasp. 

Maria speaks with no preamble, her voice pitched low, and Steve can hear the beeping of monitors and people talking nearby. 

“Traumatic pneumothorax from the broken rib, two others fractured but not snapped. Taking care of it bedside, they say it’s not as serious as it could have been—caught it before too much air leaked. Four stitches in the lip, six in the cheek. Eye checked and no damage to the cornea, should heal on its own without long term issues. Then it’s just assorted bruises and a hell of a lot of pain meds.” 

Steve listens to the recitation with a thick feeling gripped around his throat. He swallows around it, trying to clear his vocal cords. 

“Okay. So he’s…is he awake?” he asks. 

“Not yet. He came to a little bit in the ambulance but they knocked him out as soon as we hit the ER so they could do the needle aspiration. For the traumatic pneumothorax thing. I wrote that down specifically by the way, I figured you’d want to look it up—but just know that they said it isn’t a bad one—no surgery. A reminder for when you go freaking yourself out on Web MD.”

“But full recovery, right? He’s going to wake up and be okay and…?”

“That’s what they’re saying right now. Looks worse than it is. Well and we got to him before it could…” In the background, there is a muffled voice and Steve can hear Maria respond to something addressed to her. “I gotta go, Steve. I’ll try to get you more info when I can.” 

“Maria, I—” Steve tries to figure out what to say, to convey how grateful he is, but Maria cuts him off. 

“Don’t mention it, Rogers.” 

“Thank you.” 

“No seriously, don’t mention it,” he can hear a dry smile in her tone, “not entirely sure you’re supposed to be in the loop here, keep it under your hat alright?”

“Done.” Steve knows she means from Phillips. 

He agrees with her suspicion that Steve probably isn’t really supposed to be receiving any information about Bucky at the moment as part of his no contact edict—which just doubles his gratitude for Maria choosing to bend the order a bit, keeping Steve from giving himself an ulcer waiting for news. He heaves a sigh as he hangs up, flinging himself down on his sofa with his arm crooked over his eyes. He’s going to have to think of a serious thank-you gesture when this is over, his debts to Hill in the past twelve hours have been piling up rapidly with no sign of stopping. He really hopes that she will continue to update him, and not think better of it later in the light of calm. 

Steve does his best to replay the reassuring parts of what she said—full recovery, no long term damages, it looks worse than it is. But he can’t help also replaying the less comforting bits—traumatic neuro—wait, no?—something traumatic anyway with the broken ribs, stitches, and the fact that Bucky hasn’t been fully conscious since they got to him. Maybe he would have been if they hadn’t put him under, it seemed like that’s what Hill was saying, but he just wants to know that he’s come to, that he’s really alright. Until then he’s not going to be able to believe what the doctors say, not without some part of him clinging to the fearful doubt and dread that they’re wrong. 

He also can’t ignore the evidence of his own eyes—he guesses that’s the looking worse than it is—because Bucky had looked truly terrible. Steve feels the shiver of cold fear that had engulfed him as he’d knelt in front of Bucky and seen his bloodied, swollen face wash through him again. He shudders involuntarily, shaking his head. 

_I knew you’d come_ , he’d said. It chills Steve to the bone thinking of how close a thing it was, getting there at all. What if he’d just decided to let Bucky leave? Not gotten Maria to look for him? He has no idea if Pierce would have come to the meeting arranged for tonight or not, how things would have shaken down before he finally realized that something had gone wrong. If he ever had. Maybe he wouldn’t have known at all, until they pulled a body from the river and…

Steve lets out something between a dry sob and a gasp. _But that’s_ not _what happened, that’s what matters_ , he tells himself fiercely, unable to completely banish the image of Bucky’s pale face on the coroner’s slab. 

_Am I dead?_ Bucky had also asked. God, maybe even worse than realizing days or weeks later would have been arriving just an hour later or maybe two—too late by only the narrowest margin, unable to take back the minutes that would have made the difference. 

Twice today he’d thought he had lost Bucky—first when he’d woken up alone and assumed it was by Bucky’s choosing, and second when he’d heard the results of the trace and realized it was Pierce’s doing. And Steve’s stupidity. He can’t lose him again. 

That truth would maybe have felt revelatory under other circumstances. Steve _can’t_ lose Bucky. But in a day that has been filled to the brim with fear and hurt and rage and grief that simple acknowledgment can’t surprise or worry him. It just _is_ —a certainty that settles into place in him, sinking like a rock to the bottom of a stream, taking its place in the streambed like it’s always been there. And the first word out of Bucky’s mouth had been Steve’s name. So maybe he isn’t alone in the feeling either.

Steve wants to think what it means, what it changes or rearranges for him. Because it seems like it changes something. But his exhausted, spent body refuses to provide his brain with the power to chase the thought. 

What he needs is sleep. He rummages in his medicine cabinet for the small stash of ambien he keeps for travel and the occasional night coming off of a long stakeout. He knows that even if he’s as worn out as he’s ever been, there’s no way his mind will be turning off without some encouragement. 

He downs the pill, falling into his bed with the knowledge thought that even though it’s ten times more comfortable than the stock hotel mattress in the safehouse apartment, he’d trade that comfort for the sound of Bucky’s soft breathing across the room in a heartbeat. 

*

Sound is what Bucky is aware of first.

The soft, consistent beep of a heart monitor filters in. Absurdly, Bucky’s first thought is the beginning bars of _Tainted Love_. He laughs, but finds that all that comes out is something like a weak gasp. 

Then there is the pressure of a hand squeezing his, warm and dry. 

“Barnes? Er—James?” It’s a woman’s voice. _Not Steve_ , supplies his brain helpfully. 

Bucky stirs, trying to—he’s not really sure what, actually, sit up maybe since he finds that he’s lying down, or to squeeze the hand in return. He doesn’t succeed in either, merely releasing a choked off groan as every single one of his muscles refuses point blank to do as they’re told. 

“Hey, don’t move okay? Stay still, I’ll get a nurse—”

He obeys, only because he’s apparently incapable of movement anyway. Instead he tries to blink his eyes. One of them at least listens to him, the vision in his left eye coming slowly into focus—first just light, then swimming shapes, then the unmistakable bland trappings of a hospital room, and finally the concerned face of a brown-haired woman, her hand gripping his carefully around the IV taped to his hand. 

Bucky has just managed to take in enough to determine that she isn’t a nurse when the next sensation that returns to him is the fast agonizing crash of a catalogue of aches and pains, and he screws his eye shut again trying to get ahead of it. There’s a deep, dull ache through his entire abdomen, a sharp stinging at various points on his face, and the awareness of many other lesser notes all crying for his attention in a cacophony of feeling. 

“Eunngh,” he rasps. 

“Hang on—he’s coming. Don’t move,” the brown-haired woman says again. 

More noise, another body moving around him. A nurse, he guesses, as they start pushing buttons on the machines surrounding Bucky’s bed. Almost at once, he feels a wave of relief crest over him. 

“Better?” asks a different voice, this one a man’s. _Still not Steve_. 

“Yes,” Bucky tells him. 

“That should keep him happy for a bit—he’ll probably be loopy but it shouldn’t knock him out again. I’ll let the doctor know he’s come out of it.” The man doesn’t seem to be speaking to him anymore, so Bucky doesn’t bother to respond. He leaves again. 

After a few hazy minutes—Bucky doesn’t know how long, really, floating on a cloud of pain meds—he suddenly feels his brain sharpen, his awareness returning to him in its entirety this time, all at once. 

He opens his good eye again, remembering that the other is swollen shut because it had taken a direct hit from Brock’s fist. The brown-haired woman is still holding his hand, loosely, and Bucky looks more closely at her this time. She’s very pretty, he notes first, and an FBI agent, he notes second. She’s still dressed in the black swat gear, FBI printed across the vest in blocky white lettering. 

“Who’re you?” he asks, his voice still coming out a bit raspy, but with more strength this time. 

Her head snaps up, and she strengthens her grip on his hand. 

“You back?” she says, looking pleased as she leans forward to peer into his good eye. “I’m Agent Hill. Got assigned to escort you from Pierce’s.” 

Bucky nods, the movement very slight but at least recognizable. “We—you got him?”

She breaks into a grin, “In custody as we speak.” 

“Good, that’s good.” Bucky’s eye drifts closed again in relief. 

He tries to remember how it happened. He’d been in Pierce’s office, Rumlow laying into him…they were going to try to make him tell Pierce about Steve before they killed him. But then Steve had—hadn’t Steve been there? Was he—?

The beep of the heart monitor jumps its pace as his eye flies open. 

“Steve?” he gasps, “is he hurt? Did they—?”

Agent Hill’s eyes flick to the monitor in alarm, and she grabs his hand in both of hers. “He’s fine, he’s okay! We raided Pierce’s in force, nobody even put up a fight. No injuries sustained—except you,” she amends. 

His pulse slows a bit, though not entirely back to normal as he processes this. “So where…why are you here?”

 _Why are you here instead of Steve_ , is the question he means. And Agent Hill must be as sharp as she looks, because she answers the unasked question rather than the one he actually articulated. 

“He wanted to come with you on the ambulance but—” she hesitates, maybe unsure of how lucid he is, or how much to reveal, then shrugs, “Phillips kept him back and asked me to come. We got Pierce in the room with you but there’s a lot to figure out to make sure the case is airtight. It’s better if you and Steve keep some distance while it gets handled.”

“Because we fucked,” Bucky supplies. 

Hill snorts, her hand flying to her mouth to cover her surprised laugh. 

“Uh…yeah. Though I probably wouldn’t just come out and say it that way to anybody else. What the FBI doesn’t know won’t hurt ’em.” 

Bucky narrows his good eye at her. “Doesn’t seem like you’re surprised.”

She raises her eyebrows at him with a little bit of a smirk. “Steve’s a friend and I was the one he called this morning sounding like he wanted to cry asking me to trace your phone. So no, can’t say I’m surprised.” She pauses. “And that was before he almost went crazy enough worrying about you to go full rogue on a one man rescue mission rather than wait for the Bureau to get its shit together and come after you.”

Bucky snorts softly, not quite able to picture it. “Steve loves rules.”

She looks at him thoughtfully, though he can’t tell what’s going through her mind. “Maybe not as much as you think.”

He’s not sure what that means. He closes his eyes again, trying to parse what she’s said. 

He cracks his eye again. “Did I—did they know you were coming? Did I tell them Steve was FBI?”

Hill cocks her head. “No…” she says slowly, “no they seemed pretty unprepared. Really doubt Pierce would’ve been caught in the room with his man working you over if he’d had any idea.” 

“Oh…good,” Bucky exhales in relief. 

“Is that what they were trying to get out of you? Info on Steve?”

Bucky doesn’t answer. 

“So why didn’t you tell them? That thug worked you over pretty good.”

Bucky shakes his head softly. “Wouldn’t have mattered—he was gonna kill me anyway. Figured I’d better make sure Steve could still do his job after.”

“Hmm.” She’s looking intently at him again, and Bucky doesn’t have the energy to make a face, so he just stares back blandly. “He—he really wanted to be here, Barnes. When you woke up. Only reason he isn’t is to make sure Pierce can get charged with everything that’s coming to him. Know what I’m saying?”

He feels his eye welling slightly at the corner, and he looks away. “Okay,” he says. 

Hill’s brow furrows and she opens her mouth as if to say more, but the door to the room swings open once again to admit a doctor with a no-nonsense silver bun who flips briskly through Bucky’s chart, halting the conversation. 

Soon he finds himself being wheeled out of the room, en route to a series of important sounding tests, leaving Agent Hill and whatever she had wanted to say behind in the stark white room. 

*

“Sam?” Steve asks as soon as the line clicks. He’s embarrassed to find that his voice creaks a little on the name, even though he had made sure to be very collected when he’d hit call. 

“Steve? Wh—are you okay?” Sam asks, concerned. 

“Can you come over?”

There’s a pause, and Steve takes a breath preparing to try and elaborate, but he doesn’t get to it.

“Be there in an hour. I’ll bring food.” 

“Thanks,” Steve says softly. 

 

“Alright,” Sam says, setting down his pizza crust and brushing off his hands, “look man I’m going to be a good friend in just a minute but first I just have to say—I can’t believe you absolutely _did_ let him bite you in the ass. How am I _always_ so right about everything?”

Steve huffs a surprised laugh, and feels his cheeks start to burn all over again as he tosses a napkin at Sam’s face. 

“Asshole,” he says, without heat. 

Sam smirks, then sobers, his face falling into lines of sympathy. 

“Okay now real talk. What do you need from me right now? How do I help you?”

Steve heaves a sigh, scrubbing his hand over his eyes. “I…I don’t really know.” 

It’s Saturday, and Steve had woken promptly with the sunrise despite hoping the sleeping pills would carry him over a little further into the day, give him a couple of extra hours of unconsciousness not to think. He’d held out until ten a.m. before calling Sam. It was that or go completely out of his mind he’s pretty sure. 

Sam had, in their extremely brief phone conversation, gleaned a pretty good idea of Steve’s mental state. He’d arrived not only with pizza but two bags of groceries to stock Steve’s fridge, and his first move had been to open two beers without hesitation despite the fact that it was barely noon. 

Steve’s never sure how Sam intuits as much as he does—whether it’s knowing Steve too well, the fact that he’s an excellent agent/profiler, or just his own nature being a good and perceptive friend. Today Steve isn’t going to stress over it—just be thankful that he’s benefitting from whatever combo brought Sam over in record time with exactly what Steve needed. 

He’d been worried, as he took a long pull from the beer and flipped open the pizza box, that he would struggle to explain things to Sam. Instead, he’d found that once he started recounting—picking up more or less from the moment Sam had left him with Bucky in his office at the FBI—that the words tumbled over each other almost faster than he could speak them. He barely paused until he’d made his way through the events of last night, glossing over only the details that Sam probably wouldn’t appreciate being privy to anyway. 

“What do I do, Sam?”

Sam purses his lips for a minute, considering Steve. “Well…what are your options?”

“I don’t…there aren’t any! I can’t do anything until Phillips gives the okay,” Steve responds, frustrated. 

“Nah man, ignore value judgments for a sec. What _could_ you physically do right now if you chose to?”

Steve bites his cheek. “Okay. Options. Listen to Phillips and keep a low profile while they sort the case. Or…don’t do that. Go to the hospital right now and find him.”

“Right so what is the absolute worst case outcome if you do the first one?”

“I guess…” Steve screws his face up in distaste. “I guess worst case scenario is that Bucky assumes it means I don’t care about him or he talks himself out of this before I can get to him and we never see each other again.” The thought is untenable. 

“Okay, and how about the worst case scenario for the other?”

He sighs. “Pierce’s lawyers exploit our relationship to invalidate my warrant and he goes free maybe without even going to trial despite the fact that Bucky almost died because of our investigation?” It’s equally unacceptable to imagine. 

“So could you potentially live with either of those?”

“No-oo.” The word is dragged from Steve as if by pliers. 

He feels like a foosball, kicking back and forth between the two scenarios. Just when he’s convinced that one would be the worst, he pictures the other happening with a sick feeling again. The worst piece of it is the fear that Bucky might not forgive him for either one—forgive him for staying away, forgive him for ruining the case that almost cost his life. He wishes he could just ask Bucky what he wants—but of course that would be sealing it already and making it moot. 

“There you go then,” Sam says comfortably, shrugging. “You gotta figure out how to make another option.”

“How?” 

“You know what Steve, you’re a creative guy. In fact,” Sam turns him a sideways grin, eyes twinkling merrily, “I believe some of the words I’ve heard thrown around for your possible commendation on this case include ‘resourceful,’ ‘adaptable,’ and ‘out-of-the-box thinker’ so how about you apply some of that huh?”

Steve hurls a throw pillow at him with a groan, and Sam leaps away only to start crooning the chorus of _Don’t Speak_ at him in a fair imitation of Gwen Stefani’s nasal tones. 

“Stop!” Steve cries, hands up in surrender as he laughs, “it’ll be stuck in my head all day!”

“Good!” Sam chuckles, giving up his singing to clear away the empty pizza box from the table, “let it inspire you.”

 

Phillips calls him Monday morning and tells him not to come in. Discussion among the higher ups has determined that it’s best if Steve is placed on a temporary leave leading up to Pierce’s pretrial hearing.

So instead, Steve makes the trek from his apartment in Brooklyn into Manhattan, turning off his auto-pilot tendency to go toward the FBI offices and instead heading for NYU. 

He’s rarely visited the campus since graduating, and of the three times he’s been back at all two of them were for cases. Navigating the buildings, he can’t help but think how painfully _young_ the students look. He feels uncomfortably tall and large. It’s funny, because he remembers feeling very world-weary and adult when he was their age. 

When he hits the bookstore basement though, all of his discomfort melts away. Nothing about this place has changed, and he still feels the little thrill he always felt looking at shelves and shelves of art supplies—the exciting potential of blank canvases, fresh sketchbooks, new pens and brushes, and every type of paint he could want. 

There is certainly a plethora of art supply shops nearer to home than the university, but Steve wanted the solace of a familiar experience today. And he doesn’t mind spending a couple of extra hours on the errand—he has time to kill anyway. 

One pleasant thing is different from when he was a student though—he doesn’t have to count every penny to make sure he’s budgeted right for all of his studio projects for the semester, he actually has money now. So he wanders the aisles of the store picking up everything he thinks he could possibly use or has ever wanted to use, determined to spend it.

 

Not going in to work or having any kind of access to his FBI resources isn’t easy, even less so when Phillips calls him at the end of the day, after he’s arrived home from his trip to NYU, and informs him that it’s going to be for a while.

It’s a good thing, ultimately, even if it chafes. The extra caution is being taken because the results of the FBI’s raid on Pierce’s house were so astronomical that sixty percent of the entire White Collar division has been pulled to work on it, along with a half dozen agents from Organized Crime. Early cataloging is already showing Pierce and his organization linked with several cold case murders and a hundred other things. But all of it, since it was gathered in the one fell swoop, relies on the judge upholding their warrant for the search and seizure. _Nobody_ wants to give any reason to call it into question. 

Phillips assures Steve that the leave is _not_ a punishment. If anything it’s a gesture of thanks—Steve’s the one who broke the case, let him have a break and hand it off now, delegate. Steve doesn’t really buy it, but he appreciates the sentiment. He figures if things go smoothly in pretrial and everything is ruled admissible they’ll tap him again, at the very least he’ll probably be testifying on the investigation leading up to the raid. But Phillips is right—it’s bigger than him now anyway, a dozen and a half agents pulling overtime to sort through it all. 

So he’s looking at a month of leave, conservatively. Maybe Pierce’s lawyers will press for a speedy trial, trying to force the FBI to move faster than they want to in the hopes that their case will be less convincing. Doesn’t sound like it would do much good, but they might give it a shot anyway. 

With days and weeks stretching out empty in front of him, Steve gets to work. His apartment becomes a labyrinth of canvas and easels and draped sheets protecting his furniture. 

Early mornings, golden afternoons, and late nights Steve works. He feels like the floodgates that have been damming a part of his soul have opened, and it’s all he can do to stand back and let the torrent run where it will. 

More often than not its direction is a particular fixed point that Steve lets himself be swept toward gladly, learning all over again a way to speak without words.

*

Bucky is wheezing by the time they reach his apartment door, and he curses for the millionth time the fact that he lives in a building with no elevator. After two weeks in the hospital and another week home it still feels like he’s just smoked two packs of cigarettes in under ten minutes by the time he hits the fifth floor.

“You’re the one who insisted on going out,” Natasha comments tonelessly, though Bucky can hear the judgment in it anyway, as if she read his mind. 

He huffs. “I’ve barely breathed fresh air in a month Nat, I’m dying.” 

“Too bad for you breathing is the exact trouble.”

Bucky ignores her, nobly taking the high road. Well and she’s currently carrying his groceries, and he wouldn’t put it past her to take them back with her out of spite if he whines too forcefully. 

Natasha had shown up in his hospital room three days after the raid on Pierce’s place, green eyes blazing. Bucky still isn’t sure how she found out where he was—from word on Pierce getting picked up, or just keeping tabs on him, hell it’s possible she’s still down as his emergency contact somewhere and some well-meaning hospital employee called her. She’d made a beeline for him, propped up in his bed where they’d finally allowed him to sit up, and he hadn’t been sure if she was about to strangle him or what. In the end she’d grabbed his face in both hands, surprisingly careful of his still mangled left side, and peered into it, eventually releasing a long exhale. 

“Careful, somebody might think you care,” Bucky had said, feeling unexpectedly moved. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Nat had responded. 

After that, she’d more or less taken up residence in his room with him. He’d wondered how Maria would feel about it, considering that she too was still trapped babysitting him for an indefinite period of time. She’d returned from the cafeteria to find Natasha lounging in one of the plastic visitor’s chairs, and Bucky hoped she wouldn’t try to kick Nat out—he wasn’t sure who that would go the worst for but he felt like it would probably somehow end up being him. 

Natasha had risen in a boneless motion, slinking forward to introduce herself with a quirked eyebrow and a curve to her mouth. 

“Natasha,” she’d said, voice husky, holding out her hand, “Bucky’s next of kin.” 

Maria had shaken her hand, then stared at her for a long minute. Then she’d burst into a bright peal of laughter, and clapped Natasha on the shoulder. 

“Ease up ladykiller, I’m not going to try and make you leave. You play rummy?”

And that had been that, to Bucky’s surprise. Maria was apparently immune to Natasha, and Natasha responded by dropping her normal flirting and power plays and settling in. It was nice, having both of them there. Bucky had decided he liked Maria (despite the part of his brain that continued to think regretfully of her as _not Steve_ )—but you could play a lot more card games with three.

“Speaking of trouble,” Natasha says now, her voice suddenly pitched low so Bucky can just hear her. 

He glances up, confused, and then sees what she means. A familiar figure slouches at the end of the hallway, waiting in front of the door to Bucky’s apartment. Bucky frowns. 

“Wilson?” He calls as he and Natasha approach. 

Sam, whose head had been bowed over his phone, snaps his attention to them, shoving the phone into his back pocket. 

“Barnes,” he says, a dry twist to his mouth. “You look like shit.”

“Pfff fuck off. I dunno if you heard, but I’m kind of a hero.”

Sam’s wry smile turns into a true grin, baring the gap in his front teeth. “Oh that’s right—broke into Alexander Pierce’s house _again_ and somehow managed to turn it into an FBI job offer instead of an arrest. The things that happen in that division now that I’m not there keeping an eye on ’em, I _swear_.” 

Bucky chuckles. “Yeah well, you only arrested me because I wanted to get caught.” 

Sam gives him a look of exaggerated outrage, hand to his chest. “Man do you know that’s exactly what all the fucking scariest serial killers always say? You got some extra-curriculars I should be aware of?”

“Murder isn’t an intellectual pursuit, Wilson. Bodies aren’t my thing.” 

“Allllright Moriarty,” Sam drawls, smile still tugging his mouth up. At this point he seems to have noticed Natasha, standing at Bucky’s elbow and taking in their banter with a small amused expression. “He _llo_ , where are my manners? Sam Wilson, nice to meet you.” 

Natasha gives him a small smile, shaking his hand and giving her name in a smooth, sultry motion. She does it in much the same tone she’d tried on Maria, but Bucky snorts at the difference in results. Sam immediately grows flustered, dropping Nat’s hand and fumbling over his words. 

“Okay well I uh—I guess you’re wondering why I’m here—”

“Just checking up on your favorite criminal?”

Sam shoots him a withering look. “Not even top five, man.” 

Bucky scoffs, “I would be very curious to see your criteria, it sounds extremely flawed.” 

“— _anyway_ ,” Sam continues like he doesn’t hear him, “I brought something for you—not from me.” He adds the last quickly as Bucky smirks and opens his mouth to make a joke, heading it off at the pass. “See I’ve got this friend, he’s been doing a lot of painting lately. Told me if I saw anything that might appeal to anybody I knew…well then there isn’t any kind of federal sanction against _me_ swinging by and having a chat with him, right?”

While Sam is speaking, Bucky’s eyes zero in on the large, flat butcher-paper wrapped parcel leaning against the wall behind him. _Steve_. 

“Right,” Bucky says, a little hoarsely, eyes still glued to the package.

“Good, glad you agree—agree that this is totally just me, Sam Wilson your former arresting officer, coming by to bring you something I thought you’d enjoy and not at all any kind of direct contact from anybody else,” he adds carefully. 

Bucky nods, “I got it Wilson, I—thanks.” His head is buzzing a little, and it’s all he can do not to reach out and grab the thing from him and rip it open here in the hallway. 

“Cool,” Sam says, smile softening as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “Until next time Barnes. Natasha, a pleasure.” He nods to them both before ambling back down the hallway and disappearing into the stairwell. 

“Cute,” Natasha remarks. 

“He’s FBI Nat. Did you miss the part about him being the one who arrested me? Because I think he only said it twelve times.” Bucky chides her absently, moving to run reverent hands over the wrapped edges of the canvas before lifting it. 

Natasha shrugs. “You’ve got yours, why can’t I have one?”

“I don’t—I don’t _have_ him.” He doesn’t think he does. It hasn’t felt like it, anyway.

“Fine, have it your way.” 

 

Natasha, sensing the shift in his mood, unloads his groceries efficiently and without complaint. 

She may not be particularly expressive, but her concern and care have been made abundantly clear in the past two weeks in her actions and constant presence—it may be delivered with a slew of sarcastic remarks, but she has been taking good care of him. Bucky’s made sure to enjoy it too. He loves the attention and feels not at all guilty about milking it as much as he can. Their grocery shopping trip today took nearly an hour and a half because he had so much fun making her push the cart, jump to grab items on the high shelves claiming his ribs wouldn’t let him reach, and letting her wait huffily while he perused to get exactly the right pieces of fruit. 

Now though, she leaves him with a kiss on the cheek and a simple, “Call if you need.” 

Alone in his quiet apartment, he suddenly feels nervous looking at the painting laid on his dining table. He stands near the door, just looking at it until he feels too silly—like he’s in some kind of high-noon stand-off with an inanimate object. 

He just doesn’t know what he’s going to find when he opens it. More importantly he isn’t sure what he _hopes_ to find. Maybe Steve’s message is just that he’s painting again, letting Bucky know that he’s done what Bucky encouraged him to. Maybe the thing itself isn’t significant. 

Or maybe it is. 

Bucky stretches his arms in front of himself and cracks his knuckles, like he’s about to head into a tricky maneuver instead of just tearing the paper off a gift. 

He finds that his hands are shaking a little as he does anyway, and he’s glad not to have any witnesses. 

The paper comes free, and the first impression is a mélange of color before Bucky takes in the imagery in front of him. He sinks into one of his dining chairs, an ache rising in his chest that has nothing to do with his still healing injuries. 

Most of the canvas is framed by a curved, white ribcage, the bones standing out starkly against the riot of color within. 

Contained between the ribs is a burst of shapes and hues. The spires of the Brooklyn Bridge bookend the joyous, unmistakable skyline of Moscow’s Red Square with its bright towers. A river turns into a starry night that splashes chaotically into a field of blue flowers—forget-me-nots, ice blue and spilling out between the spaces in the ribs. A different vine twines and curls through, dotted with spiky purple passion flowers. The longer he looks, the more details Bucky finds hidden in the intricate patterns and flow of shapes. A black crow with its mouth open in a cheerful jeer. A sleek red fox moving stealthily through a trail of vines. 

But most astounding is a series of thin, glittering lines running through three of the ribs on the right side. Bucky squints at them—he’s seen his own x-rays plenty over the last few weeks. They took new ones almost every three days while he was recovering in the hospital. And evidently Steve has seen them too, because there is gold leaf tracing exactly where there are cracks in Bucky’s own chest. Making them beautiful, special, like nothing else in the piece. 

It’s his heart, laid bare on this canvas. 

Bucky blinks against a rising tide of tears, but gives in quickly. There’s no one to see. 

Bucky feels as though his chest has been cracked open all over again. But instead of the messy, unfinished tangle of doubts and hopes and fears that he has always felt resides there, Steve had looked inside and found _this_. 

_Fuck_. Steve _knows_ him. Steve…loves him? 

It shouldn’t be possible. It’s too fast, too ill-advised, too unplanned. But the proof is sitting here on his dining table—at least proof of the former. And if it’s possible that Steve could have come to understand the shape of Bucky’s heart in their brief moment together—couldn’t the rest be possible too?

Their last argument flashes again into his mind, the betrayal and broken trust. With nearly a month to think about it, Bucky can admit now that Steve wasn’t entirely in the wrong. Wasn’t even unreasonable in the assumptions he’d made. 

But that’s the shitty part about it. Somewhere deep down Bucky wishes that even with—maybe even _especially_ with—very good reasons not to trust him, that Steve had done it anyway. That Steve had actually chosen to do the deeply unreasonable thing and given all evidence to the contrary had thought the best of him. It’s not fair—not to someone he’s known a number of days he could count on his hands. But that’s what he wants. 

And what had Steve wanted from him? Honesty against his own self-preservation, he supposes. An equally unlikely thing. A thing Bucky wishes more than anything he could go back and offer. Go back and be less prudent, more reckless, and more brave.

Does Steve wish he’d done differently as well? Does it matter with the water already under the bridge?

He stands abruptly, turning from the table to collect himself, the rising tide of emotion and hope making him gasp—and he’s supposed to avoid doing things that make him gasp at the moment. 

His hands clench and unclench uselessly at his side. _God Steve, what are you doing to me here?_ He desperately yearns to just pick up his damn cellphone, call Steve and ask all the questions that are swirling through him. But he can’t. If Steve is feeling—whatever he felt when he painted this—and still is holding out for the sake of the case, Bucky can’t be the one to throw it away. 

Instead he grabs up his phone and dials Maria. It’s gotten late enough that she’s probably not at work anymore, so he’s happily surprised when she answers anyway. 

“’Sup Barnes?” It sounds like she’s talking through a mouthful of something, and Bucky almost feels guilty about bothering her afterhours when she _just_ got released from spending every waking minute with him. He glances behind him at the painting gleaming on the table. Okay, he doesn’t feel that bad. 

“When’s stuff starting for Pierce’s hearing?”

“You mean the pretrial?” she asks, slowly. 

She definitely knows what he’s getting at. It had been she who’d told him that that was the unofficial end date to Steve’s leave of absence, when he would be allowed back on the case and presumably whatever goes with it. It hadn’t had a date set at the time, but he hopes it does now—he needs at least an end in sight to count down to or he’s going to lose his mind in the waiting.

“Yeah,” he rasps. 

Maria clears her throat. “Actually just got a slot today—Judge Ellis. This Friday.”

Bucky breathes hard through his nose, exhaling in relief. Friday. _Friday_. He tenses again at once. It’s sooner than he could have hoped for, and suddenly he wonders if that’s a good thing. If he’s ready. Maybe it’s better not knowing, better to have loved and lost than to find out you never were loved at all—or whatever. 

“Yeah,” Maria remarks, tone suspiciously casual, “I’m guessing most of us on the case will be taking the rest of the day for a long weekend since we’ve all been busting overtime. Take a breather before we gotta gear up for trial. Except Steve, knowing him he’ll be at the office late—ready to get reacquainted with the details and all.” She pauses, and Bucky can hear the smile in her voice. “Hope that was the info you needed. Night Barnes.” 

“Night,” Bucky says faintly after a silence. But Maria is already gone. 

_Friday_.


	16. Sixteen

Steve answers his phone on the second ring, feeling a twinge of guilt about being in his office already despite the fact that he’s still waiting for the official word on the hearing—though he suspects Maria has probably already guessed he would be. He’d slunk in about an hour ago past the skeleton crew staffing the floor, knowing anybody who might object would be at the courthouse. 

“Rogers,” he says. 

“Warrant upheld, all evidence ruled fully admissible,” Maria practically crows on the other end, words tumbling out in excitement, “your purgatory is officially over Rogers.” 

Steve falls back into his chair in numb relief, not quite believing it. “Just like that?”

“Well,” she admits, a little more soberly, “they took their best shot—Judge Ellis grilled the D.A. and Phillips for about an hour before deciding, but yeah more or less. Just like that.” 

“And I’m—I’m good?”

Maria laughs, “Now that I can’t attest to in any way—but you’re off the leash.” 

“Thank _god_ ,” Steve replies, fervently. 

“You know that anybody else would have been thrilled by the prospect of indefinite paid leave right?” He can practically hear Maria shaking her head. “You’d think I told you you’d just won a trip to the Bahamas instead of that you’re going back to work. But whatever floats your boat, Steve. I’m happy you’re happy.” 

“Is there anything…should I get started on anything right off the bat?”

She snorts. “I don’t know and I don’t care—I’m taking my fucking weekend with pleasure, as is everybody else here. Ask somebody on Monday weirdo.” 

Steve sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. Yeah okay, thanks Hill. I owe you one. Or twenty.”

“Yes and I will be spending the next two days of leisure considering how you’ll pay up.” Her tone goes sly, “Until then _you_ enjoy the rest of your day.” 

He decides against pressing her for any more details, even though he’s dying for information and something concrete to sink his teeth into. But she’s earned a little R and R and he knows when to pick his battles. 

“Back atcha.” 

Before he hangs up, he hears some kind of raucous cheer go up behind her, so he assumes that he doesn’t have to tell her twice. 

He drops his phone to the desk with a sigh. Part of him feels still wound up, waiting for the other shoe to drop—it can’t be that easy, that the road is just clear and the case closed. The other part of him chides: _easy? You think_ that _was_ easy? _You’ve been on tenterhooks for a month_. 

It would help if he could throw himself into something new, he thinks, glancing at his empty inbox dolefully. If he can’t get back immediately into helping with the Pierce investigation at least finding something else to focus his attentions on. Work has always been his solace, and he’s been without it for a month, unable to think of anything except the reason why he had found himself set adrift. His handful of other pending cases had been reassigned when he’d been put on leave, and the incoming assignments are likely to be fairly thin until Monday morning. There’s always reopening a cold case file or two, he muses. If needs must. 

But Steve can’t quite motivate himself to get up from his chair right away, daunted by the thought of heading back into the bullpen at the moment. He will. Any minute now. 

It’s nearing sunset though, and his one high window is pouring golden autumn light across his office in slanting, honeyed beams. He slumps forward, pressing his forehead to the cool polished surface of his desk, letting himself wallow for just a few more moments in relief. 

A light knock followed by the sound of his door opening draws him out of his reverie, and he looks up half-expecting to see Hill or Sam come to pull him forcibly from his work cocoon. 

“Hi Steve,” Bucky says softly, clicking the door shut behind him. 

Steve is momentarily frozen, mouth open in surprise, before he returns to his senses. He shoves his chair back from the desk, nearly tripping over his own feet to get around it. For all the clumsiness of the movement however, his arms, when they fall into place around Bucky are as gentle as can be. Bucky’s arms lift to wrap around Steve’s neck, Steve’s hands alight delicate as moth’s wings across Bucky’s back, as if he might shatter under the contact. It’s Bucky who tightens his grip, pulling Steve closer against him as Steve presses back tentatively. 

Neither one speaks for the moment, both of their faces buried into the other’s shoulder, simply breathing into the embrace. Bucky’s fingertips comb lightly through the silky hairs at the nape of Steve’s neck, and Steve revels in the unhindered, steady movement of Bucky’s lungs under his hands. 

Eventually they both pull back, Bucky’s palms coming to a rest against Steve’s chest as Steve searches Bucky’s face for the traces of the injuries he’d seen there the last time they’d been in the same room. 

“Can I?” Steve asks, voice just above a whisper, hand hovering at Bucky’s cheek. Bucky swallows and nods. 

Steve brushes back a curl that has fallen over Bucky’s forehead. Then he runs a fingertip faintly over his eyebrow and down his cheekbone where a fading green and yellow bruise still shadows his eye, then across the small pink lines of fresh scarring across his cheek and down his lip. 

Steve’s thumb replaces his fingertip, brushing across Bucky’s bottom lip, and Bucky’s eyes drift closed as he leans into the touch, Steve’s palm cupping his jaw. 

Steve finds himself breathing, “ _Bucky_ ,” across his cheek like a prayer, Bucky’s hands flexing ever so slightly against Steve’s chest as he leans across the final distance and kisses him. 

Bucky’s lower lip slides across Steve’s, his mouth soft and pliant as he tilts into the kiss. 

When they break apart, Steve slides his hands down to grip both of Bucky’s, stepping back to lean half-sitting against the edge of his desk and pulling Bucky to stand between his knees so that Steve can look up slightly into his face. 

“You’re okay?” he asks. 

Bucky squeezes his hands reassuringly. “Yeah, I’m okay. You?”

“Depends on how you mean I guess.” He gives a weak laugh. “Did you…you got the painting?”

Bucky nods, biting his lip. “Steve you…are you in love with me?”

Steve drops his eyes, no longer meeting Bucky’s under his fringe of lashes, a blush blooming across his cheeks. Then he looks up again, expression resolute. 

“Yeah I—I think I am. I could be.” 

“Oh,” Bucky says, a little faintly, one corner of his mouth tipping up uncertainly. “Good.” 

Steve’s eyebrows raise, eye bright. “Do you…?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says on a slightly heavy exhale. “Yeah I think so too.” He gives an exasperated sort of huff of laughter, freeing one of his hands from Steve’s to run through his hair. “But I mean—that’s not—it’s kinda—”

“Crazy?” Steve offers. 

“Right?”

“Completely.” Steve shrugs. “But I’ve been telling myself that just about every hour for a month and it hasn’t changed it so…here we are.” 

Bucky’s mouth twists in a wry smile. “Love at first sight isn’t a real thing, Steve. Or I don’t believe in it anyway.” 

Steve laughs with an answering dry grin. “I don’t either.” 

He hesitates, eyebrows creasing as he works out how to articulate the thought that he’s been circling around this question. 

“I do think though…I think maybe there can be a—spark, I guess. Something that tells you that the person in front of you is going to be important, even if it takes time to figure out how. And…whatever else is true or whatever else happens after today, you _have_ been important to me, Bucky. That thing—that spark was right and I—I kind of hope it’s not done being right about what you could mean to me. I hope that’s okay.”

Bucky swallows hard, giving a little nod. Steve can see a muscle twitch in his cheek where he’s working his jaw. 

Although the seconds are agonizing, Steve forces himself not to blunder forward, saying more to cover the waiting silence before Bucky can react. He means what he’s said regardless of whether Bucky feels the same. He just really hopes he does. 

Finally, Bucky opens his mouth to speak, voice coming out in a little bit of a croak. “Natasha says—”

He pauses, but Steve smiles. “Yeah? What does she say?” 

“She says we don’t live just one life—we live as many as we want, as many times as we choose to change. I think—this new one started when you broke me out of prison. I don’t really know what it’s gonna be yet but—but I think I’d like to spend the next four or five lives at least figuring out how to love each other for real. Because you’re important to me too, whatever else there is.”

Steve nods, his heart fluttering in his throat. “Natasha sounds like she knows what she’s talking about.”

Bucky’s eyes drop to their clasped hands, smile complicated, understanding the layers of compliment and concession in the statement. Steve lifts Bucky’s left hand to his cheek, then presses a soft kiss to his knuckles. Bucky follows the motion with his gaze, eyes lingering on Steve’s mouth even after he drops their hands. 

Bucky leans in slowly, and Steve tips his head back. Bucky runs his nose along the exposed column of Steve’s neck and along his jawline, raising goosebumps on Steve’s arms. 

“In that case,” he says, “you sure you gotta spend your Friday night in the office?”

“Not even a little,” Steve says, before swooping to his feet again and catching Bucky’s mouth with his own in one swift, smooth motion that elicits a startled, pleased sound from the back of Bucky’s throat. 

One of Steve’s hands slides to cup the unharmed side of Bucky’s face while the other snags him around the waist, pulling him close. Bucky’s fingers grasp the lapels of Steve’s suit coat. His chin tips back, mouth opening against Steve’s as they both relearn the taste of each other, the rhythm of moving together. It’s a kiss that carries all the things they haven’t said yet, the fear and the almost loss and the forgiveness and the relief. There’s going to be more for them to say, a hundred times more questions to answer and sort out together—but right now knowing they both plan on seeing it through is enough. 

The kisses grow more heated until at last Bucky pulls back with a wince, panting a bit. Steve immediately relinquishes his enthusiastic grip, chagrined at having completely forgotten his earlier gentleness. 

“I should probably warn you right now,” Bucky says, catching his breath, “that I have two more weeks before my doctor agrees to clear me for anything…rigorous.” 

Steve gives a weak puff of laughter, dropping his forehead to Bucky’s shoulder with a little bit of embarrassment. “Sorry…got carried away.”

“Me too,” Bucky chuckles regretfully, holding a hand to his ribs. 

Steve places his hands on either side of Bucky’s face, leaning in slowly to drop a feather light kiss on Bucky’s nose, then over both of his eyelids, his cheeks, and each corner of his mouth. Bucky sighs, and Steve drinks in his face in the golden light from the window—like the moment is already being frozen in amber for him to keep always.

Then he steps back, taking up Bucky’s other hand in his again. “How about something utterly non-rigorous—dinner at my place? And after we can sleep—just sleep—in my much better than FBI issue bed? You can even watch me again and I won’t comment on how it’s weird or anything.” 

Bucky gives a startled bark of laughter, swatting at the side of Steve’s head. “I did _not_ watch you sleep!”

He grins cheekily, “That’s not what I remember but if you say so…”

“You asking me on a date, Rogers?”

“You taking me up on one?”

A fond smile spreads over Bucky’s face. “Definitely.” 

Steve’s is lit with an answering grin. “Good.”

They leave the tiny office hand in hand, both of them smiling like dopes over the fact that it doesn’t matter who sees. 

This time it’s just for them. 

*

_Six Months Later_

Bucky’s phone buzzes with a new text from Steve Rogers. 

**Steve** : hey you still bringing lunch today?

 **Bucky** : yep  
**Bucky** : important question though first  
**Bucky** : how do you feel about receiving noods at work?  
**Bucky** : …  
**Bucky** : get it steve

Bucky grins to himself, imagining exactly the exasperated look on Steve’s face right now. He is probably covering his face with his hands.

 **Bucky** : like nudes  
**Bucky** : because i’m bringing noodles

Steve finally breaks, texting back,

 **Steve** : YES BUCKY I GET IT  
**Steve** : how do you live with yourself with jokes that bad

 **Bucky** : i dunno, how do you?  
**Bucky** : oh right because i deliver your pad see-ew duh

Steve doesn’t respond, and Bucky tucks his phone back into his pocket, calling it a win as he steps forward to the counter to order, still chuckling to himself. 

 

“Uh okay, green curry?” Bucky reads the side of one of the cartons. 

“Me,” says Maria. 

“So that means this one’ll be the pad thai for Wilson because he’s a basic bitch,” Bucky says, ignoring Sam’s glare to hand over their orders while Maria snorts. 

The four of them are piled somewhat improbably into Steve’s office, the confines of which are usually only barely comfortable for two. But winter still has New York in its clutches, fading out slowly into a drizzly, miserable March and keeping them out of the park across the street for a while longer yet. So Steve is in his desk chair, Bucky perched on his lap, while Maria and Sam have maneuvered things so two chairs can fit on the other side of the desk. They have to move one to open the door if they want to let anybody in or out, but it works. It’s not comfortable, exactly, and Maria’s knees are drawn nearly up to her chest to fit, but Bucky likes to think of it as being cozy. 

“…show you a basic thing or two,” Sam is muttering under his breath as he breaks open his food. 

“Aw fussy? Is it ’cause you need a fork, man?” Maria teases him. 

Sam jabs his chopsticks at her, “ _you_ have been spending too much time with Barnes, whatever he’s got is contagious, you should watch out.” 

“Nah I’m very responsible, got the test results to prove it!” 

Sam groans, pleading, “Steve! Please help me out here!” 

“It’s true, pinned it up on the fridge and everything—gold star.” Steve says with a grin, squeezing Bucky’s waist. 

“I swear to _god_ I am never coming back, I mean it this time,” Sam says with a roll of his eyes, before he digs into his pad thai (wielding his chopsticks with full proficiency, he might add). “Anyway isn’t it your day off?”

Bucky hums an affirmative around a mouthful of pad kee mow. “Wrapped yesterday so I’ve got a couple free. Just can’t stay away from your handsome face.” 

Sam grumbles again, good-naturedly. Despite the repartee which they’ve never dropped, he was the first one to bring over a housewarming gift when Bucky had moved into Steve’s apartment three weeks before. He’s a teddy bear, Bucky thinks. A prickly, glowering teddy bear who loves Bucky even if he won’t admit it. 

“That mean you’re doing paperwork this week, Hill?” Steve asks curiously. 

Maria shrugs. “Yeah, unless something better comes up in the next day or two. In which case I think Phillips will let me foist it off on Barton—me and Barnes are four for four right now. Gonna be challenging you for your golden boy title soon Steve,” she finishes with a wink. 

“Dream team!” Bucky says, reaching over for a high five which Maria returns, enthusiastically repeating “dream team!” and ignoring the aggrieved look that Steve and Sam share across the desk.

After the case had moved forward with Pierce, Steve made good on his offer of consulting work for Bucky. Due to their romantic involvement, it was determined that they shouldn’t work together directly, but Maria had cheerfully chimed in that she didn’t mind being his second choice. They work well together, though much differently from how he’d worked with Steve—and if it seems like there have been more reasons than he would have anticipated for going by Natasha’s office in the course of their casework, Bucky hasn’t commented on it. Yet. 

Phillips had simply given an almighty sigh of resignation when they’d come anxiously into his office, hand in hand, to notify him of their relationship. His sole comment had been, “Goddamn son of a bitch. I owe Hill fifty bucks—thought it’d take you at least another month to come tell me.”

It turned out that the betting pool on them had been running robustly since the very first day Bucky had walked into the FBI and into Steve’s office. Steve’s face had flamed a mortified crimson when he’d learned the odds that had been laid on whether he’d get…well, laid. But Bucky had been gleeful and triumphant, declaring Barton owed him dinner for winning that initial pot (though Steve had later protested just for Bucky’s ears that _he’d_ been the one to make the move). 

The four of them continue discussing the case Steve’s currently working on, how long the terrible weather can possibly hold, and whether they should all make plans for a day out of the city soon, teasing and joking all the way through. By the time Sam and Maria clean up the remnants of their meal, agreeing regretfully that they can’t stretch their government funded lunch hour any longer, Bucky feels flushed with laughter. 

“I should probably get back to it too,” Steve says quietly once they’re alone, kissing Bucky’s temple. “See you at home?”

Bucky loops his arms loosely around Steve’s neck, dropping a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Yep, I’ll cook.”

Steve laughs, giving Bucky a quick hug around the waist. “I know. I’d offer, only my boyfriend has a very unreasonable injunction against getting takeout twice in one day.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes fondly, poking Steve in the shoulder as he stands. “Just trying to keep your blood pressure in check, dumbass.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “You saying you’re interested in my heart, Barnes?”

“Oh who’s got jokes now!” Bucky grins, dancing out of Steve’s reach as he makes to pull him back in. 

“Jerk,” Steve says with a soft, sideways smile. 

“Punk.” Bucky relents, moving back in for a last kiss, Steve holding onto both of his hands between his own. 

“See you at home?” he asks when they break apart. 

“See you at home.” Bucky agrees. 

_Home_. Their home, with the comfy sofa and a coffee table stacked with books and the kitchen counter with the fancy espresso machine Sam bought for them. Where afternoon light pours into the two living room windows, with the sills full of houseplants that Bucky helps make sure Steve remembers to water. And the office with two desks, one tidy and one a heaping mess of papers. Their bedroom with the bed that Steve makes up tidily every single day despite Bucky’s protests—and over it hanging a painting of a ribcage glinting with gold, where the forget-me-not flowers and the starry sky now flow off the edge twining into a matching canvas with a second set of ribs, unbroken and arced as if toward the other, filled with Steve’s mother’s favorite flowers, his father’s dog tags and his grandfather’s compass and a myriad of the other colorful things that make up the shape of Steve’s heart. Where Bucky falls asleep listening to that heart beating in his ear every night. 

Home, home, home. 

He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get tired of saying it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read, kudoed, and especially commented throughout this story--you all made the process so fun! (Special thanks and shout out to all of you who took the time to comment on every. single. chapter. You know who you are and you deserve every good thing in the world!)
> 
> Just a quick little notes-style epilogue to this fic, please listen to [ The Thief ](https://open.spotify.com/track/72Y8E7bJHmGPxHtDgitR9B?si=86Q-JPvURsGw1Rq-3_QftA) by Brooke Fraiser and know that it is absolutely the song that Steve and Bucky dance to at their wedding.
> 
> If you're reading this sometime in the future please know it is NEVER too late for me to want to hear what you think of it! Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> As always, you can find me on tumblr @odette-and-odile :)

**Author's Note:**

> Love you all! Here's the [ rebloggable tumblr post ](http://odette-and-odile.tumblr.com/post/178290171778/art-thief-heart-thief-now-complete-and-fully-up) if you feel moved to share!


End file.
